<\/gu-island><\/figure>\n

Badosa, who is ranked No 15 in the world, later withdrew from the event in Wuhan, citing a gastrointestinal illness. She did not reply to a request for comment from the Guardian.<\/p>\n

The accusations against Badosa marked the second time that Spanish athletes have fended off accusations of racism while in China. Before the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, Spain\u2019s basketball federation published an advert<\/a> for their men\u2019s team that showed players using their fingers to pull at the sides of their eyes.<\/p>\n

After it emerged<\/a> that the women\u2019s basketball team \u2013 as well as the Spanish tennis federation \u2013 had published similar photos, the basketball star Pau Gasol apologised and blamed a sponsor for insisting that players make the gesture.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just a bad idea to do that. It was never intended to be offensive or racist against anybody,\u201d he said<\/a> in 2008. \u201cIf anyone feels offended by it, we totally apologise for it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Source: www.theguardian.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Spanish tennis star Paula Badosa has apologised after she was accused of racism over a photo that appeared to show her pulling her eyes back with chopsticks while in China for a series of tournaments. Following her defeat on Saturday in the semi-finals of the China Open, Badosa\u2019s coach, Pol Toledo, posted the photo…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":92669,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"WB4WB4WP_MODE":"","WB4WP_PAGE_SCRIPTS":"","WB4WP_PAGE_STYLES":"","WB4WP_PAGE_FONTS":"","WB4WP_PAGE_HEADER":"","WB4WP_PAGE_FOOTER":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy"],"yoast_head":"\n