Victoria Azarenka apologizes for what she called a misunderstanding in her 4-6, 3-0 loss to Maria Sharapova in Rome. Azarenka appeared to say “f---ing bitch” after winning for the hotly contested first set and then made an aggressive arm motion after she was forced to retire with an elbow injury.

Sharapova did go and pat Azarenka on the shoulder after the match was completed. The rivals also played an exhibition together in March, sharing the same private plane. It was the 10th time since the start of 2010 that Azarenka has retired in a match. "Very sad and tough day for me," the fourth ranked Azarenka tweeted. "Very hard to retire like this. Said some things to myself on the match that I'm not proud of. But it was just being mad at myself. Will never refer anything to my opponent. I play with respect to every single player. I apologize if there was a misunderstanding of that situation."

Sharapova did not want to comment on the incident.