Tennis Player Laura Siegemund Blasts US Open Crowd After Match With Coco Gauff
German tennis player Laura Siegemund says this may have been her last appearance at the US Open.
Not because she's getting ready to hang it up for good. Instead, she was not happy with how she says she was treated by fans during her match with Coco Gauff on Monday at Arthur Ashe Stadium.
Fans — as well as Gauff — became frustrated with Siegemund's pace of play during the match which she went on to lose after winning the opening set.
Siegemund herself was not happy about fans getting on her over her molasses-y pace when she took time to wipe away sweat from her forehead and racquet. She even got into it with umpire Marijana Veljovic over a trip to use her towel.
After the match, she and Gauff shared a quick handshake, while the 35-year-old Filderstadt, Germany native iced Veljovic, later saying that she and the official don't have a particularly great relationship, per The New York Post.
The German's pace of play was front and center during the match. During the on-court interview she was asked what it was like to play in the match, Gauff simply said "Slow."
Siegemund voiced her frustration in an emotion during her post-match press conference.
“I won here two times , every minute of every game I’ve played here, everything out on the court and this is how they treat me? In a match like that? Full stadium. Against Coco, who won two tournaments recently. And that’s the kind of performance I play? That’s why I play tennis. But to be treated like that,” she said, per The New York Post.
“I mean, I would only come back because this is a Slam. But for sure, not for the people, to give them a show. If they are like this, they don’t deserve a show.”
It's fair to say that the crowd was likely full of Gauff supporters, given that she's an American and one of the sport’s rising superstars.
However, Siegemund wiped away tears while asking why the crowd got on her simply for playing slowly.
“They treated me like I was a cheater," Siegemund said. "Like I was trying sneaky ways to win this match or something. They treated me like I was a bad person. But you know there are people who are throwing racquets, who are screaming, who are like making bad gestures toward the audience. I did not one moment in the whole match, and there was a lot of tension going on. Not one moment I did anything.”
“I was just slow. That’s something in the rules, I get my time violation, that’s fine.”
She's got a point, but then again, she's playing late on a Monday night against an American after the crowd had been crushing Honey Deuces all day.
No one wants to deal with it, but that kind of rowdiness shouldn't be all that surprising.
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