Photo Courtesy of Coco Gauff / Instagram
Rising tennis star Coco Gauff received praise for defending herself against a chair umpire at Monday’s U.S. Open match against Laura Siegemund.
With Siegemund and Gauff tied at 40, Gauff strolled to Chair Umpire Marijana Veljovic, who told her that her serves were too quick.
The 19-year-old uttered her frustration, calling Siegemund’s performance “slow.”
“This is ridiculous! She’s never ready when I’m serving. She went over the clock like four times. You gave her a time violation once. How is this fair? You’re calling the score, like, six seconds after the point is over,” Gauff exclaimed.
“She’s never ready!”
Veljovic countered, “You’re very quick; she’s very slow.”
But Gauff corrected her, saying that she was going at an average pace and advised that Veljovic asked “any ref.”
Gauff affirmed to Veljovic that she wasn’t doing her job, and everyone in the building thought the same.
“Why do you think they clapped when you gave her a time violation? Because she has been missing for like six points,” the 19-year-old player said.
Gauff said she tried to keep quiet the previous rounds but got fed up. She dictated that regardless of how Siegemund served, the 35-year-old needed to be ready for her serves, earning thunderous applause and cheers from the audience.
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After the match, Gauff called the game slow, causing the audience to laugh and cheer. She also gave Siegemund props for being a formidable opponent.
After winning the match 6-2, the Atlanta-born tennis player clarified she didn’t intend to express her frustration with the umpire despite her team wanting her to.
“I was really patient the whole match,” she started. “She was going over the time since the first set. I never said anything. I would look at the umpire, and she didn’t do anything. Obviously, the crowd started to notice that she was taking long. So, you would hear people in the crowd yelling, ‘Time,’ or doing the watch motion.”
“My team told me I should’ve [spoken] up earlier,” she added.
Gauff said she didn’t make a fuss about it to be nice, but the problem came when Siegemund took too long during her serve. Plus, the umpire called the scores seconds after the point finished, making it appear that Gauff served too fast.
Addressing the intense and emotional match, Siegemund spoke with reporters, breaking into tears about how the crowd mistreated her.
“…they treated me bad,” she said. “They treated me like I was a cheater like I was trying sneaky ways to win this match. They treated me like I was a bad person.”
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Siegemund got into a heated argument with the umpire after she was told she couldn’t “go to the towel” anymore. The 35-year-old complained that Gauff was going “extremely fast.”
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Former first couple Barack and Michelle Obama attended the match to honor 39-Grand Slam champ Billie Jean King, an advocate for women’s sports and fought for equal pay in tennis. Because of King, the U.S. Tennis Association awarded men and women equal prize money when competing in the U.S. Open. They also came to support Gauff.
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