U.S. tennis star Coco Gauff is out of the women’s singles tournament at the Paris Olympics, following a straight-set loss to 13th-seeded Donna Vekic at Roland-Garros Stadium.
Gauff, who was chosen as the Olympic opening ceremony flag bearer for Team USA, lost 7-6, 6-2 to Vekic of Croatia. But the results came with controversy as the match saw Gauff arguing with chair umpire Jaume Campistol over a line call in the second set.
Olympics.com wrote: “Gauff’s frustrations reached a boiling point in the second set when she went down 4-2. The 20-year-old appeared convinced the Spanish umpire was dead wrong about a decision, arguing passionately through a language barrier for close to 10 minutes.
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“The fans let Gauff know it was time to move on by booing her back into competition, but the damage was done as she could not claw her way back – as Vekic had to do in the first set.”
The results on Tuesday surprised many considering how well she did in the first two rounds of the tournament and her previous feat on the clay of Roland Garros where she reached the French Open final in 2022.
Gauff believes she was cheated and stressed why tennis should use a video replay system to handle situations like hers. “I mean there’s been multiple times this year where that happened to me where I feel like I always have to be, you know, an advocate for myself on the court,” Gauff said. “And I feel like in tennis we should have a (review) system because, you know, these points are big deals. And yeah, usually afterwards they apologize. So it’s kind of frustrating, you know. Sorry doesn’t help you once a match is over.”
