Matteo Berrettini is one of the nicest guys on the ATP Tour, but he made a bad decision when posting his latest story on Instagram and it backfired.
It seems that Matteo Berrettini lives on a rollercoaster lately. First, he was forced to miss the whole clay-court season due to an injury and a surgery. Then, he came back to win 9 matches in a row and two titles on grass before eventually testing positive for COVID-19 and withdrawing from the 2022 Wimbledon. Now, the Italian faces another difficult period as he was accused of being a racist.
Many tennis players are big fans of basketball. This includes Nick Kyrgios, Frances Tiafoe and also Matteo Berrettini. In his recent Instagram story, the young Italian wanted to pay tribute to LeBron James who he admires, however, a bad choice of emojis backfired quickly.
Berrettini used an emoji of a king's crown and gorilla. However, many people started sending messages to the Italian that using a gorilla emoji is racist and so he immediately took down the story from his account. Subsequently, he posted a new story, stating:
"I am very sorry if my previous story post offended anyone. I was informed that it can easily be misinterpreted so I have deleted it. LeBron is my biggest idol. Incredible role model and inspiration."