The controversy over the homophobic sentence pronounced yesterday by the tennis player Fabio Fognini in Tokyo does not go out. An insult addressed not to others but to himself, at the end of the match, lost against the Russian Daniil Medvedev at the Olympics. During the round of 16 of the men’s tennis singles, the athlete exclaimed “You’re a fr ***!”, Repeated twice, to himself. A sort of self-offense for having missed passes, or a break in opening sets, and in the end not being able to win. How to say a wand waved with a term to be stigmatized anyway, used in a negative way to define oneself in some way as a “wrong”, a loser. Intentions to offend anyone in all likelihood They weren’t there. The tennis player would have used those expressions without thinking as he then implied. But it was precisely that automatism that triggered even more criticism from those who read those exclamations as homophobic attacks “by default”, too. if without any specific target, but against the whole homosexual community.
Excuses
Last night to apologize he wrote a message on Instagram making a story on a rainbow background: «The heat is going to your head. In today’s match I used a really stupid expression towards myself – he admitted -. I didn’t want to offend anyone’s sensitivity. I love the LGBT community and I apologize for the nonsense that came out of me ». One outburst too many, like others to which Fognini has accustomed his fans on clay, but which has crossed “the line”. Furious with his own shortcomings, he shouted that sentence several times as if it were a curse. He repeated it when turning to the ball boy and speaking in Italian and not in English, he said: “Give me this ball.” And then after playing it he added: “You’re a f *** because you have to throw them over the net.”
Comments
On the net the criticisms multiplied even the day after the heavy crash.
Michele tweeted a few hours ago, commenting: «Instead of fr … or he could have given himself the cogl *** or the st **, it was much more fitting. As if being gay was a shame. It is a shame to be homophobic in a society that considers itself civil ”. And Lolita adds: «The apologies of #Fognini know a lot about: I have many gay friends but…».
Then BoaDc remembers: «The problem isn’t just #fognini. The problem is that every day I read ‘gay’ or ‘retarded’ used as an offense. At 15, during a parish camp, a friend of mine said ‘I would burn all fennel’. I was sick for the whole vacation. Be careful, it doesn’t take much … “
Previous
Fognini had already been disqualified last April in Barcelona for having offended a line judge. At Wimbledon in 2019 he was fined £ 10,000 for uttering this sentence against Sandgren: «But is it right to play here? Damn English … If a bomb explodes on this club, a bomb must explode ». And two years earlier at the 2017 US Open he addressed sexist insults to chair judge Engzell and was disqualified from the doubles tournament.