Tennis star #CocoGauff recently received praise after confronting U.S. Open umpire Marijana Veljovic about her not enforcing time violation rules for her opponent Laura Siegemund during their first match on Monday.
“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?” Gauff said to Veljovic, per the video. “I’m going a normal speed.” After a back-and-forth with Veljovic. Gauff later continued, “Ask any ref here, I go a medium-paced speed.”
“I don’t care what she’s doing on her serve, but on my serve she has to be ready.” Gauff ultimately defeated Siegemund, 3-6, 6-2, 6-4, to advance to the second round.
During a press conference, Gauff said that she debated speaking up sooner.
“If I could do it all over again, I would’ve said something earlier, maybe on a changeover.. other than that I don’t regret talking to the ref the way I did,” she explained. “I actually watched the video when I was taking an ice bath bc I wanted to make sure before I came in here. Sometimes you have these emotions & you forget what you said. I’d still say everything I said in that moment again”
We know it must’ve felt good to win that match after this, too! Go ‘head, sis 👏🏾👏🏾 #BWLM💕
