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Coco Gauff lost her third round match against Croatian Donna Vekić on Tuesday. While taking full responsibility for her disappointing early elimination, she called chair umpire Jaume Campistol and demanded more tennis video replays following an intense, tearful argument on the court around the end of the match.
Gauff was fighting for his life in the second set after Vekić came back from 5-1 down to win the first. She had failed to regain the calm strength she had shown in the previous set, but what happened next sent her into a spiral. She served the ball to Vekić and the return landed on the baseline. The linesman removed the ball first, so Gauff did not keep the ball in play. But the chair umpire disagreed and overturned the linesman’s judgment, thus giving the point to Vekić. And a break in service, making any return for Gauff even more difficult. Gauff walked towards Campistol and the two men argued for five minutes, Gauff in tears, before the match resumed.
“I felt like he announced it before he hit, and I don’t think the referee disagreed,” Gauff told the media after the match. “I think he just thought it wasn’t affecting my swing, which I felt like it was.”
Vekić was already several games ahead when Gauff argued with the chair umpire. At this point, Gauff’s game had already collapsed and she admitted she didn’t know if following him would have changed anything.
“I’m not going to sit here and say that one point affected the result today,” Gauff said, “because I was already on the losing side.”
Whether she would have won or lost is not the point of her comments or her anger on the field. It’s about correctly applying the rules of the sport to each player. And this isn’t the first time she’s felt this way.
“It always happens to me here at Roland Garros. Every time,” Gauff told Campistol during the argument. “This is the fourth, fifth time this has happened this year.”
There is evidence that this has happened to him at least one other time in the last three months alone. At the French Open in May, the same situation happened when she faced Iga Swiatek in the semifinals. She also lost that match.
But all is not lost for Gauff at the 2024 Olympics. She no longer has singles, but she plays mixed doubles with Taylor Fritz, who also competes in the men’s singles. Gauff also continues her long-running duo with Jessica Pegula, who lost her second round singles match earlier this week. Gauff and Pegula are No. 1 seeds in women’s doubles and recently won their first Grand Slam doubles title at Roland Garros.
Between his partnerships with Pegula and Fritz, it’s possible Gauff leaves the game with at least one gold medal. It may not be singles, but gold is gold no matter the event.