Explaining the tennis rule that ended Coco Gauff’s participation in the Olympics
Coco Gauff of the United States lost 6-7, 2-6 to Donna Vekic of Croatia in the Olympic women’s singles tournament, but the match was overshadowed by a controversial decision on the line in the second set as Gauff attempted a comeback.
The disagreement led to a minutes-long discussion in which Gauff repeatedly said the point should have been replayed.“You have to understand this is not fair,” she said on the field before the match resumed.
Below, you can read what happened, what rules applied to the incident, and why Gauff was so frustrated with the official decision.
What happened?
At 2-3, 30-40, Vekic hit back a second serve from Gauff.
She caught the ball slightly off-center, sending it deep into the middle of the court, pushing Gauff behind the baseline. Gauff positioned herself in her full forehand ready position, able to fully prepare herself because of the speed of the ball.
As the ball bounced very close to the line, a linesman saw that Vekic’s shot was out, while Gauff hit the ball with his forehand.
Gauff saved her follow-through and fired the ball into the net.
Immediately after the call, the linesman said “correction,” the word referees use to override a call. This meant that he ruled that Vekic’s ball was in, and chair umpire Jaume Campistol awarded her the point because Gauff’s follow-up shot had gone into the net. The point gave Vekic a break of serve at a decisive moment in the match.
What is the rule?
The rules of the ITF (International Tennis Federation) apply to the Olympic tennis tournaments.
Regarding ignoring line calls, Case 7 is as follows:
“If a chair or linesman calls ‘Out’ and then corrects the decision to good, what is the correct decision?
“Decision: The chair umpire shall decide whether the original ‘Out’ call was an interference with either player. If it was an interference, the point shall be replayed. If it was not an interference, the player who struck the ball shall win the point.”
This rule puts chair umpires in an impossible – and completely avoidable – position.
Why impossible?
Because umpires have to look inside a player’s mind and decide whether the out call interfered with the player’s swing. In almost all cases, the answer should be yes, because calls are made as soon as the ball bounces and generally before the racket makes contact with a ball. It is generally accepted that a loud shout while, or even before, a player is hitting a ball is a disruption. That is why umpires constantly say “quiet please.”
Gauff discussed the decision with both the referee and the tournament director. (Patricia de Melo Moreira/AFP via Getty Images)
Gauff argued over whether the call came before she struck the ball. Audio of the incident suggests it did come after she struck. But under the rule, that doesn’t even matter. The question is whether the call, whenever it came, interfered with her — or was “interference,” according to the rule book.
She said it pulled her swing up. The umpire said it didn’t.
Why could this have been prevented?
Video line calls are everywhere at the highest levels of tennis. The technology has been around for more than a decade. It became very widespread during the Covid-19 pandemic, when tennis wanted to limit the number of people in close proximity to players. A computer is never overruled and does not accidentally call a ball out in the middle of a player’s backswing.
What did Coco Gauff say about it?
Immediately after the chair umpire’s overrule, Gauff said, “(the linesman) called it out before I hit it, so I went up on the ball.” Pulling off a full follow-through on her forehand, as she did, adds to the trajectory of the shot. Gauff described the differences between the shots, motioning a full swing and an abbreviated swing to make her case.
She burst into tears and said, “It always happens to me on this court.” She referred to a previous, similar incident with Iga Swiatek in the semifinals of this year’s French Open. “It always happens to me at the French Open, every time,” she said. “I always have to stand up for myself on this court, all the time.”
“I feel like I’m being cheated all the time in this game,” she added, speaking to tournament official Clare Wood. “It happens to me, it happened to Serena,” referring to Serena Williams, who felt umpire Carlos Ramos had “stolen” points from her during a 2018 US Open final against Naomi Osaka, and who was subjected to a litany of completely incorrect line calls in a match against Jennifer Capriati at the 2004 US Open. The calls during that 2004 match led to an apology from the United States Tennis Association (USTA) and in part to the introduction of Hawk-Eye video calling, which at the time was only used for TV viewers.
Williams made a number of serious mistakes during the 2004 US Open. (Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)
Before returning to the court to serve at 2-4, Gauff said, “It’s not fair at all. You guys are not being fair to me and I hope the game will be fair someday, but it’s not.”
When has this happened to Gauff before?
When Gauff pleaded her case to Campistol and Wood, she pointed to previous decisions on the tour that went beyond Roland Garros and the Olympics.
“This is the third time it’s happened (this year). It happened to me in Dubai, it happened to me here, and both times I was right. I’ve never argued about calls and you know that, but this is not fair. This is not fair. I feel like I’m being cheated all the time in this game. I feel like I’m being cheated all the time, and I have to argue about it,” she said.
During her French Open semifinal defeat to Swiatek last month, a line umpire incorrectly called Swiatek’s serve in the second set. Gauff hit her return and sent a backhand return a few feet wide. The chair umpire overruled the call on the serve, but also ruled that the call had no effect on Gauff’s ability and ability to return the ball unimpeded. So Swiatek was awarded the point.
Gauff and chair umpire Aurelie Tourte discuss the decision at Roland Garros. (Tim Clayton/Corbis via Getty Images)
A tearful Gauff approached chair umpire Aurelie Tourte and said during their exchange that the crowd “booed because they knew (she) was wrong.”
After the game, Gauff advocated for the use of video replays: “I definitely think at this point it’s almost ridiculous that we don’t have it. Not just because it happened to me, but every sport has it.
“There are so many decisions that are made, and it’s annoying as a player to go back or go online and see that you were absolutely right. Then you wonder: what does that get you at that moment?”
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The incident in Dubai that Gauff referred to took place in February in a round of 16 match against Karolina Pliskova.
On that occasion, Gauff hit a first serve that was in and returned to the net by Pliskova. The serve was wrongly disregarded by the umpire, Pierre Bacchi. Gauff challenged the call and Hawk-Eye — not present at the French Open — showed that the ball was in.
But unlike when Gauff missed her return against Swiatek in similar circumstances and lost the point, this time the umpire ruled that Pliskova had been influenced by the call, and so the point was replayed. A frustrated Gauff spoke to Bacchi for nearly five minutes and asked to speak to the tour supervisor — a request that was not granted.
Gauff recovered to win the match, saying afterwards that the incident had “fueled” her victory. Against Swiatek, Gauff eventually broke in the match in question, but then lost five of the next six and went down in defeat.
Gauff lost the last two games on Tuesday after the disputed decision, despite going 0-40 straight after Vekic’s serve.
Why is there no video footage of tennis at the Paris Olympics?
Earlier this month, David Haggerty, the president of the ITF, which organises the Olympic tournament, said the decision not to use video and computer calling was taken during the initial planning phase for the tournament over the past three years.
Since video and computer line calling became possible, there is a claim in clay court tournaments that the computer system is not as accurate as on hard courts because the lines are slightly raised because they are made of plastic and nailed into the court.
However, the system’s designers have corrected this in recent years, and some clay-court tournaments, such as the Masters 1000 in Madrid, use computer line calling. Haggerty said that change came too late to implement the change for the Olympic tournament.
Most systems are not 100 percent foolproof, and Hawk-Eye line calling is no exception. The bigger issue is whether the system is more accurate than a human, and no one is saying the computer is worse than a human. The computer system is accurate to about three millimeters. Humans judging balls, which in some cases are moving 150 mph, can’t come close to that.
How did Donna Vekic react?
It’s important to remember that someone was on the other side of the net for all of this. Serving at 4-2, Vekic paused long on both her first and second serves, muttering “It’s not my fault” between serves as the crowd booed her. She then went 0-40 down before saving three break points to win the game in a highly charged moment for both players.
After the match, Vekic said: “It’s a very difficult situation.
“I personally thought the referee made a good decision because it came quite late, but I’ll have to look at it again,” she said. “It’s hard to know at that moment. After that, with the crowd, it wasn’t so easy. I lost my concentration for a few points, but I’m glad I came back in that match (to save the break points) because it was an important match.”
Additional reporting: Nicole Auerbach, James Hansen and Charlie Scott
(Top photo: Patricia de Melo Moreira / AFP via Getty Images)
