"I was not trying to humiliate her": Yulia Putintseva 'sorting something special' for ball girl in final statement about incident

After the incident that went viral surrounding Yulia Putintseva being perceived to humiliate a ball girl at the US Open, the Kazakh has had her final say on the incident.

As it went viral again yesterday, Putintseva aimed to draw a line under it saying that she was not trying to humiliate her and that it wasn't meant as perceived as well as that she is aiming to give something special to the girl in question who was caught up in the incident.

Putintseva called for balls in her US Open tie and when the ball girl arrived on the scene, she didn't retrieve and let them drop on the floor in an incident which went viral in the aftermath.

"It's kind of scary how the world can judge someone from just a 3-second video that someone posts from one side, without seeing the rest of what was really happening. I was just playing tennis and lost a tough game, which was very close (in my opinion) to turning the match around. After the game (as you can see in the picture), I got very much disappointed and was almost crying because I didn’t do better. At that time, the girl was giving me the ball, which I didn’t even notice because I was deep in my thoughts…

I was not trying to humiliate her (or anyone) by not taking the ball that she was giving to me. I didn’t do anything disrespectful to anyone at that particular moment. I do apologize if this girl thinks it was something directed towards her. (And by the way, her name is Kate—a very nice girl who understood that it was nothing personal.)

I can’t say that I’ve been perfect throughout my career. I get angry on court, get p****, saying something stupid, and curse like there’s no tomorrow sometimes. Guilty for that. But I did never put myself “on top” of someone. That’s just not me at all.

I hope you guys can see it from a different angle now. I mean, I know that haters gonna hate, and this message is getting way too long, so I’m going to stop right here. And one last thing: since Kate is already involved in this mess, I’m trying to do something special for her.