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Sydney - It was the smiling victory jig that brought a bit of fun to tennis, but Germany's Andrea Petkovic has axed her famous "Petko Dance" after critics said it was disrespectful.
VIDEO: Andrea Petkovic does her Petko Dunk
Petkovic denied her bum-wiggling dance move, now replaced by the more muted "Petko Dunk", was cancelled over negative comments, but she admitted she was taken aback by the reaction.
Instead of dancing after a win, the 24-year-old brunette now strolls to the centre of the court and imitates a basketball jump-shot, in a move worked out with German footballer Bastian Schweinsteiger.
"They started saying, 'Don't you feel like it's disrespectful towards your opponent?' - and this question came up over and over again," she said, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
"The thing I used to say was always, 'Listen, the soccer players when they shoot a goal and they celebrate with all kinds of things and they don't even win the match, and nobody would ever say something against them."
She added that tennis remained a very conservative sport, especially among American fans.
"It's just our very traditional sport and I think this was kind of strange for people," Petkovic said.
"It's strange -- on the one hand the Americans really like me and they come to my matches, but they're like really bipolar," she added. "They either love me or they hate me."
But Petkovic said she had also grown bored of the Petko Dance, which Bayern Munich's Schweinsteiger has promised to imitate as a goal celebration.
"So he told me if I do that (slam dunk), he's going to do the Petko Dance next time he shoots a goal," she said.
"So I'm really excited he's going to do it. He's practising, I heard. So I'm doing the Petko Dunk now."
She added: "There are always people who don't like you if you're a little extreme. There are always critics. But I don't really care what people say."
