Iga Swiatek provided a politically correct answer when asked about the Coco Gauff and Aurelie Tourte incident, saying she wasn’t sure whose opinion was right and highlighting that it “made no sense” for her to join the discussion.
In the fourth game of the second set of the French Open semifinal versus Swiatek, Gauff was left in tears after an argument with chair umpire Tourte. After one of Swiatek’s serves was called out late, Gauff returned the ball and it went wide. But after Tourte overturned Swiatek’s serve as in – to Gauff’s shock – she awarded the point to the Pole.
Gauff wasn’t happy at all, arguing that hearing Swiatek’s serve being called out impacted her return and that the point should absolutely be replayed. But Tourte was adamant that she made the return before a late call on Swiatek’s serve.
“You should be ashamed and know the rules of the game. This is the second time this has happened. It’s a Grand Slam semifinal,” Gauff said.
“No he did not. He called it and then I hit it. I’m 1,000 percent sure. If he called it before I hit it, I stop my reaction. I didn’t even finish my follow-through. He called it before I hit it. Will you ask him?” Gauff said.
But Tourte didn’t grant that request – and after the crowd started booing – Gauff told the chair umpire those boos were directed at her. At the end of the argument, Gauff was left in tears.
The game in which the incident occurred, Swiatek ended up dropping her serve for the first time in the match. But it was no issue for Swiatek, who quickly responded to complete a 6-2 6-4 win.
“Well, I think here it would only be about you know the sound because if the line umpire called it after Coco’s return or not. I think he called it after her shot but I am never sure honestly because I am focusing kind of on myself. I don’t know what you guys think,” Swiatek said.
“It’s the umpire’s decision so honestly I knew that if the umpire already made a decision she is not going to change it so I didn’t really want to get into the discussion because for me it didn’t really make sense but if Coco thought differently than it’s normal I guess to say something but I did not know honestly how the conversation look like.”
Following an argument with Tourte, 20-year-old Gauff suggested that it is time for tennis to introduce video technology assistant (VAR) so situations like hers can be checked out.
“Tennis is the only sport where not only we don’t have the VR system, but a lot of times the decisions are made by one person,” Gauff said.
“In other sports there’s usually multiple refs in making a decision. It’s almost ridiculous that we don’t have it. Not also just speaking because that happened to me, but I just think every sport has it. There are so many decisions that are made, and it sucks as a player to go back or online and you see that you were completely right.”
Addressing Gauff’s claim, Swiatek acknowledged that having a replay available for such situations would help. But also, Swiatek also questioned how it would look in reality – if Gauff had an opportunity to ask for a replay in their match, would Tourte grant that request because she was confident in her call?
“I think it would be easier to have that replay but honestly, I don’t know how it would look like logistically, when can you ask an umpire to call a video replay, or when it’s up to her to do that because I think the umpire today was pretty sure with her call. So I don’t know how that would look like,” Swiatek explained.
Now, Swiatek is set to battle against 12th-seeded Jasmine Paolini, who defeated Mirra Andreeva in the semifinal. Going into the final, Swiatek has a 2-0 head-to-head versus Paolini – previously, she defeated the Italian at an ITF tournament in 2018 and also claimed a win when they met at the 2022 US Open.
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