I’d cry, too, if I thought a bad call cost me an Olympic medal. Which is why tennis player Coco Gauff was crying after an argument with the umpire during her match with Donna Vekic, which she ended up losing.
During the match on June 30, Gauff was trailing her opponent when Vekic hit a shot near the baseline. The line judge called the shot out, per The Guardian, so Gauff didn’t keep the ball in play. But then the chair umpire, Jaume Campistol, disagreed and gave Vekic the point, leading Gauff to pause the game to argue her side. “I never argue these calls. But he called it out before I hit the ball,” Gauff told Vekic. “It’s not even a perception; it’s the rules. I always have to advocate for myself.”
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“It always happens here at the French Open to me. Every time,” Gauff said, referring to Stade Roland-Garros, the French tennis complex where she was playing. “This is like the fourth, five time it’s happened this year.” Gauff reportedly left the argument in tears, while fans in the stands booed the officials who made the call.
I can’t blame Coco Gauff for crying here, but the good news is that she wouldn’t be the first tennis GOAT to lose at the Olympics. Serena Williams, for one, lost in the 2016 Summer Olympics, per The New York Times, but nobody’s doubting her worldwide supremacy. Gauff is still the youngest person since Williams to win the US Open, after all. And at just 20 years old, she has plenty of Olympic games in her future.
