Italian tennis star, Fabio Fognini has blamed the extreme heat in Tokyo for causing him to repeatedly use an anti-gay slur during an Olympic match.
Fognini, 34, was beaten 6-2, 3-6, 6-2, by Russian Olympic Committee player Daniil Medvedev in the third round on Wednesday, July 28.
During the match, the tennis star repeatedly berated himself as a “frocio,” a derogatory term in Italian equivalent to English language homophobic slurs like “faggot” or “poof.”
Taking to his Instagram on Thursday, the world No.31 said the temperature, which soared as high as 33 degrees Celsius, affected his head.
“The heat went to my head! In today’s match I used a really stupid expression towards myself,” he wrote across a rainbow background.
“Obviously I didn’t want to offend anyone’s sensibilities. I love the LGBT community and I apologise for the nonsense that came out of me.”
Fognini is no stranger to controversy.
At the 2017 US Open, he was kicked out of the doubles tournament for insulting the chair umpire and was subsequently handed a suspended ban of two Grand Slam tournaments.
