Boris Becker rightfully chides 'terrible behavior' of Yulia Putintseva

Yulia Putintseva is not a bad player. She has won three career titles, including one this year. What is in question is the character of the Russian. This is especially true after she embarrassed a ball girl in Putintseva's third-round loss to Jasmine Paolini.

In truth, it is the Russian who should be embarrassed. Maybe she was as she took to social media after the match to apologize. Her apology, though, seemed a bit off and her behavior still has no good reason.

Former ATP No. 1 Boris Becker was having none of what Putintseva was trying to sell. He took to social media to blast the Russian for her on-court incident. He was completely correct to do so.

Yulia Putintseva embarrasses herself and Boris Becker calls her out for it

What happened was that Putintseva failed to win a game after having a break-point and seemed miffed with herself. As she began her service game, she asked the ball girl to throw her balls. The first one bounced and hit the Russian in the stomach. The next bounced and hit the player in the foot. At no point did Putintseva try to move to catch the balls.

The crowd began to boo the player's behavior (though not vociferously enough), as they should have. She was being classless.

Beck posted on social media, "Who does Putintseva think she is… Terrible behavior towards the ball girl!"

Tennis commentator Rennae Stubbs piggy-backed on Becker's reaction and said that the way Putintseva acted was "typical" of the player, writing on social media, "The disrespect and obnoxious behavior here is unbelievable and typical from her."

Putintseva did apologize on social media saying, "I want to apologize to the ball girl for the way I was when she was giving me balls...I was really p***ed at myself because by not winning the game from the break point and then got empty in my emotions and deep in my thoughts, that I was not even focusing on what’s going on and who gives me the ball."

That, of course, is ridiculous. As one can see in the video, Putintseva was looking directly at the ball girl when she was throwing the balls to the player. There clearly was not a lack of focus. Even if there had been, the normal human thing would have been to catch the balls, calm oneself, and move on to the next game, not embarrass a ball girl.

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