Kate Fahey appeared to call Federico Staksrud a “f**king b**ch" after their Saturday night showdown at MLP Columbus presented by The James at Ohio State.

The moment came after the first mixed doubles contest in the match between Fahey’s St. Louis Shock (6-0, 17pts) and Staksrud’s Orlando Squeeze (7-2, 20pts).

Footage appears to show Fahey using the term while shaking hands with Staksrud following an intense mixed doubles bout that Fahey/Gabe Tardio took over Staksrud/Lacy Schneemann 11-9.

There’s a lot of necessary context to provide here, however.

At 10-9-1, the Shock appeared to win a point that would close out the match. Right before Tardio hit the winning smash, though, a cheer came from the St. Louis bench.

The referees made a distraction ruling and gave the rally to Orlando, much to the annoyance of the Shock.

That made it 10-9-2, and Fahey/Tardio would go on to close out the match on the very next point to put St. Louis up 3-0.

Fahey addressed the incident in a post-match interview:

"All love. Fed and I talked after—it’s all good. I get heated. Everybody knows I get heated, and it’s really hard when it’s 9-9 and it gets kind of in the heat of the moment. I’m working on it—I think our team is working on it—but everybody wants it just as badly as everybody else, and they’re extremely great competitors. Win or lose that match, I think we learned a lot from it.”

This is the second week in a row where a Shock player has aimed that exact term at an opponent; Hayden Patriquin did the same thing to Anna Leigh Waters just last week at MLP Orlando in an event that sparked outrage both on the team benches and on social media.

Saturday’s incident in Columbus—so far—has provoked nowhere near the same reaction.

Staksrud was seen smiling and laughing off the incident and even wrote on social media that he “loved every second of it.”

Major League Pickleball ended up releasing a statement on the Patriquin-Waters incident, though it’s unknown if they will do something similar here with how vastly different the reactions have been.

What we do know, however, is that both St. Louis and Orlando have more work to do this weekend in central Ohio.

St. Louis will face the Phoenix Flames and New York Hustlers on Sunday, while the Squeeze will close out their weekend against the Hustlers and Chicago Slice.

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