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LONDON: It didn’t take long for Coco Gauff and Aryna Sabalenka to patch up their relationship after this month’s French Open final.

Now as Wimbledon is about to start, Gauff is hoping everyone else can also forget what the top-ranked Sabalenka said in the wake of her loss to the American at Roland-Garros.

A day after dancing together on Wimbledon’s Center Court in a TikTok video, the two tennis players faced more questions on Saturday about the aftermath of Sabalenka’s comments right after the final, when she said her loss had more to do with her own mistakes than Gauff’s performance.

The Belarusian later wrote to apologize to Gauff and said her comments were “unprofessional,” but not before she faced some major backlash from fans and pundits — especially in the United States.

Gauff is trying to make sure the criticism stops.

“I’m not the person that will fuel hate in the world,” said Gauff, who opens her Wimbledon campaign against Dayana Yastremska on Tuesday. “I think people were taking it too far. … It was just really targeting and saying a lot of things that I felt were not nice. I didn’t want to fuel that more.”

Sabalenka, who faces Carson Branstine on No. 1 Court on Monday, said she hopes the
TikTok video shows that all is well between the two.

“We are good, we are friends,” the three-time major winner said. “I hope the US media can be easy on me right now.”

Sabalenka reiterated that she never meant to offend Gauff.

“I was just completely upset with myself, and emotions got over me,” she said. “I just completely lost it.”

Gauff did acknowledge that she was initially tempted to hit back publicly at Sabalenka, who said the American “won the match not because she played incredible; just because I made all of those mistakes from ... easy balls.”

But after Sabalenka reached out to apologize, she was quick to bury any grudge.

“I preach love, I preach light,” Gauff said. “I just want us to be Kumbaya, live happily, hakuna matata, and be happy here.”

BAD HOMBURG, Germany: Five-times Grand Slam champion Iga Swiatek crushed second seed Jasmine Paolini 6-1 6-3 on Friday to reach the Bad Homburg Open final and stay in the hunt for her first career title on grass.

With Wimbledon starting next week, the former world number one showed she was on the right track on the surface, outclassing the Italian, last year’s Wimbledon finalist.

“I am super happy and I was not expecting this. I just did my job and I knew what I wanted to play and I went for it,” Swiatek said in a post-match interview.

“I’m happy I kept the momentum going until the end of the match. Jasmine, you can’t let her get back in the game because she’s a fighter. I just wanted to go for it, and go for my shots.” Swiatek has a 5-0 lead in their head-to-head matches.

The Pole, who has won the French Open four times along with one US Open, did not play any other grass tournaments this season ahead of next week’s Wimbledon start, instead opting for a week of training in Mallorca before competing in Bad Homburg.

She was never troubled by the Italian in the first set as she raced through it in 29 minutes courtesy of three breaks.

The pair traded breaks at the start of the second set but Paolini continued to struggle to hold serve and contain the aggressive Pole who went 4-2 up.

Swiatek sealed victory with a forehand winner on her third match point to book a final spot where she will face either top seed Jessica Pegula or Czech Linda Noskova in Saturday’s final.