American female tennis players faltered when it mattered the most! However, their Paris Olympics journey was filled with plenty of excitement. Coco Gauff, Danielle Collins, and Emma Navarro made headlines for all the wrong reasons. Collins faced criticism for her heated exchange with Iga Swiatek during their quarterfinal match. Navarro also received backlash from fans for her harsh comments about China’s Zheng Qinwen after their third-round match. Gauff’s incident, however, had a slightly different context.
The 20-year-old American tennis sensation found herself in a confrontation with chair umpire Jaume Campistol during her third-round match against Donna Vekic from Croatia. The incident occurred in the second set when one of Vekic’s shots was initially called out but later corrected by the umpire. Gauff expressed her disappointment with the call and protested against allowing Vekic to gain an advantage. She demanded a replay of the point and even accused the umpire of “dishonesty.”
Vekic eventually emerged victorious, winning the set and match with a score of 7-6, 6-2, thus ending America’s youngest flag bearer’s Olympic journey. According to fans, Gauff was simply trying to defend her position to the umpire and nothing more. On the other hand, Collins found herself involved in two controversial incidents during her match against Swiatek.
After Swiatek claimed the first set with a score of 6-1, Collins made a strong comeback, leveling the score with a 6-2 result in the second set. However, during the deciding set, Collins struck a powerful backhand that hit Swiatek in the ribs, causing her to fall to the ground. Although Swiatek managed to get back up after a few moments, she later revealed, “I couldn’t breathe for a moment. It was painful.”
The situation didn’t end there, Collins eventually retired from that match with the scoreline well balanced in favor of Swiatek at 6-1, 2-6, 4-1. She mentioned an injury to her stomach muscle as the main reason for her withdrawal. However, during the handshake, she was once again seen having a long conversation with Swiatek and this is exactly where the fans have all the objections.
After the match, Gauff broke down in tears and said, “I feel like I’m constantly being treated unfairly in this game. This is the 3rd time this happens to me this year. It always happens to me on this court.” For those who are not aware, a similar controversy took place at her SF match against Swiatek in the 2024 French Open. Reflecting on what happened in Gauff’s match, one fan wrote, “No, do people seriously not realize Coco’s incident is not remotely similar to Navarro’s and Collins’s? I’m not saying it wasn’t objectionable but Emma and Danielle directly insulted their opponents, Coco got into an argument with the UMPIRE.”
Speaking more about Collins’ match, the 30-year-old tennis star later revealed her topic of discussion with Swiatek at the net. She said, “I told Iga she didn’t have to be insincere about, you know, my injury.” Collins went on to add, “There’s a lot that happens on camera, and there are a lot of people with a lot of charisma who come out and act one way on camera and another way in the locker room. And I just haven’t had the best experience, and I don’t really feel like anybody needs to be insincere. They can be themselves. I can accept that, and I don’t need the fakeness.”
After hearing these lines from Collins, fans feel it’s quite unfair to connect this with Gauff’s incident. “People love to connect dots that aren’t even there,” said another.
Even Navarro was involved in a heated post-match handshake with her Chinese opponent in her R3 match. While giving her thoughts on what she had actually said to Zheng during that interaction, Navarro revealed, “I just told her I didn’t respect her as a competitor. I think she goes about things in a pretty cut-throat way.”
However, she did acknowledge her opponent’s performance in that match and also congratulated her. According to fans, regardless of this congratulatory message, whatever she said to her previously is equally “disrespectful.” A fan wrote, “Exactly… what Navarro and Collins did was just straight-up disrespectful. Although Coco was wrong about the call, she wasn’t in any way rude.”
Another fan brought up a controversial moment involving Vekic and Zheng during the final match. Vekic was a bit disappointed with Zheng prolonging her serve and even made a few comments about her later on. Reflecting on the same lines, another fan wrote, “Yeah exactly. She didn’t badmouth her fellow players… if anything, it’s Donna who did that to QZ.”
Gauff has been a target of online hatred for quite some time now. She has been on the receiving end of social media abuse and many other negative things in the past. So, involving her in any controversy that is not even related to her is not surprising according to some fans. They say, “Maybe if you realize Coco is the main target for most haters.” Haters try to make her life miserable, but the youngster has now found a powerful weapon to counter all of that negativity!
Photo from Coco Gauff Instagram
