Coco Gauff’s Olympics singles journey came to an end today, as she was well beaten by the in-form Croatian Donna Vekic.
It marked a real upset, dumping out the number two seed, but the match’s narrative was not dominated by her impressive hitting or lack of errors.
Instead, the headlines will be stolen by what happened in the crucial second set, which actually left Coco Gauff crying and shouting at the umpire.
The American will have had aspirations of claiming Olympic gold were she to bypass Iga Swiatek, but now the Polish superstar has a clear run at the title on her favoured clay, whilst Gauff will have to look elsewhere for success.
Coco Gauff left fuming with Olympics chair umpire
The timeline of events was pretty well summed up by renowned tennis journalist Jose Morgado, whose first tweet simply wrote: ‘Big argument between Gauff and umpire Campistol. Think Coco is right here…’.
He would confirm his suspicions with a picture, confirming that the 20-year-old was now ‘shouting and crying’ at the umpire.
Then, listening in on what Gauff was saying to the umpire, she reportedly claimed: ‘I feel like I’m getting cheated constantly in this game. This is the 3rd time this happens to me this year.’
She would go on to lose every game following the incident, despite actually having three break points on the final Vekic serve before being broken herself to lose the match.
Coco Gauff left feeling cheated again
Gauff has every right to leave the court feeling cheated, given what occurred.
It has not been a great year for tennis umpires, who have made some pretty notorious blunders in recent months, but this might arguably be the worst of them all, especially given what was at stake.
With Vekic having brought about a break point, she struck a ball long that Gauff missed, likely because the umpire had already called the ball out.
Swiftly overruled and called as in, the US Open champion was left furious that she had therefore lost the point despite having had her strike dramatically altered by the call.
This is not the first time she has been left angry with an umpire either, with Gauff fuming at an umpire in Dubai as well. Luckily, she went on to win that match, but she would not be so fortunate in the Roland Garros semi-final, where she branded that umpire as ‘wrong’ as she fell to a straight-sets defeat to Swiatek.
It seems that she is just getting no luck at the moment, especially on Parisian soil, although Gauff can hardly claim that she played well enough to deserve the win anyway.
Fortunately, the ladies and mixed doubles represent fine opportunities for her to still claim silverware for her country.
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