US Open champion Coco Gauff was spurred on to victory in the Dubai Tennis Championships Round of 32 after a disagreement with the umpire. During her match against Karolina Pliskova, Gauff had a dispute with French umpire Pierre Bacchi.
The issue arose when Gauff served down the line and Pliskova returned the ball out of court. Despite this, the umpire overruled the call and declared Gauff’s ball “out.”
Gauff challenged this decision using the game’s hawk-eye technology, which showed that her ball had indeed landed within bounds. However, instead of awarding the point to Gauff, the umpires asked her to replay it to keep the match flowing smoothly.
“I think it just fueled me. I wanna watch back the video,” she said. “I feel confident that it was after. It’s ok. It’s just one point. It happens in tennis. Players make mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes. It kind of went upward from there for me.
“I think I was trying to tell myself to stay calm the next point. Sometimes, I get angry and I go for too much. I was just trying to let that not be the turning point for the set,” Gauff added. “Maybe I dragged it out a little longer than I needed to, but I did what I felt was best in that moment.”
Gauff was upset during a five-minute chat with umpire Bacchi. She even asked to talk to the chair of umpires, but that didn’t happen. Gauff had to calm down and get back to playing to win.
People watching the game were generally on Gauff’s side. Many believed she should have been awarded the point. Some fans said Bacchi should apologise to Gauff for not checking the rules properly.
But Gauff was strong and won the second set 6-4, even after the fuss when she was ahead 4-2. She beat Pliskova 2-6, 6-4, 6-3 and got through to the next round in Dubai.
Apart from the argument with the umpire, Gauff had a tough time, making 17 mistakes in the first set. After the game, she talked about how you need to be strong in your head to win after things go wrong.
“At [last year’s] US Open, I think I lost two or three games in a row once I argued,” Gauff remembered. “[This time,] when I walked away, I was like, ‘Ok, don’t let one point turn into a three- or four-point ordeal.’ I definitely was able to reset after that. I put myself in the position to win that set.”