Caitlin Clark suffered a black eye after being poked in the eye by Connecticut Sun star Dijonai Carrington during the WNBA play-offs last month. And Carrington mocked the incident during a live video on social media earlier in the week.
Clark, who has been , has risen to prominence since starring for Indiana Fever in the WNBA during her rookie year.
The 22-year-old has excelled for her team and was named Rookie of the Year after averaging 19.2 points and a league-leading 8.4 assists per game during the season.
Carrington appeared in an Instagram live video on Wednesday alongside her girlfriend NaLyssa Smith, who is Clark's team-mate at Indiana Fever.
In the video, Carrington staged a dramatic recreation of the eye poke, before Smith attempted to make eye contact with her.
Carrington exclaimed in the video: "You poked me in the eye", before the pair broke into laughter. And the Connecticut Sun player then asked: "Did you do it on purpose?"
The question appeared to be a reference to USA TODAY columnist Christine Brennan, who was called out after she asked Carrington if the eye poke had been deliberate and whether she had been laughing about the incident with a team-mate.
At the time, Carrington denied she had made contact with Clark intentionally. And the WNBA players' union released a statement in the aftermath of the interview which read: "To unprofessional members of the media like Christine Brennan: You are not fooling anyone.
"The so-called interview in the name of journalism was a blatant attempt to bait a professional athlete into participating in a narrative that is false and designed to fuel racist, homophobic, and misogynistic vitriol on social media. You cannot hide behind your tenure.
"Instead of demonstrating the cornerstones of journalism ethics like integrity, objectivity and fundamental commitment to truth, you have chosen to be indecent and downright insincere."
Brennan later defended her line of questioning on the Good Game with Sarah Spain podcast as she explained: "You know what you do as a journalist? You ask the question, and you give them a chance to take it and run with it. And that's exactly what was my intention, that's exactly what I did.
"You just give them a chance ... give her a chance to answer the question because it was running rampant on the internet. It's out there, so let's ask the athlete so they can clear the air. I'm never going to shy away from asking any question of any athlete, and I'm happy to do it."
