Coco Gauff’s last 16 match against Karolina Pliskova at the the 2024 Dubai Tennis Championships garnered attention. Gauff was involved in a heated exchange with the umpire during the second set of the match. As she led 4-2 in the second set, umpire Pierre Bacchi called a ‘fault’ on the American’s serve. This led to Gauff getting into an argument with him and after the match, she revealed how it fueled her to victory.

Despite losing the first set, Gauff rallied to win the game 2-6, 6-4, 6-3 and reach the quarter-finals. But her debate with the umpire, which lasted nearly five minutes, was the talking point after the match.

Coco Gauff says argument with umpire “fueled” her comeback

During the match’s second set, Gauff’s first serve at deuce was initially called out by chair umpire Pierre Bacchi, but the world No. 3 had expected to be awarded the point after a successful challenge. Despite the Hawk-Eye system showing the serve to have landed in, the chair umpire refused to award the point to the 19-year-old.

In the post-match interview, the American sensation was asked to comment on the disagreement with the umpire. She said, “I think it just fueled me. I wanna watch back the video. I feel confident that it was after.”

She further added, “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.”

The incident had escalated after Bacchi said that the point should be replayed, while Gauff argued that the umpire’s call had come after Plíšková had hit a return into the net. A tense debate lasting close to five minutes ensued, with Gauff even demanding to call on the supervisor.

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Usually focused on her game, it is not often we see Gauff showing off her anger during the matches. But her aggressive side was also evident during her US Open campaign last year.

Gauff’s unusually aggressive behavior at the 2023 US Open

During the US Open first-round match last year, Gauff made the headlines for all the wrong reasons despite her win. In the match against Laura Siegemund, she lashed out at the umpire for allowing her opponent to take out a few seconds in between two service returns.

Later, Gauff explained her side of the story. She said, “On her serve, even though you’re supposed to be on the time, I was being nice. My team told me I should have spoke up earlier. But then it got to the point where she was doing it a lot on my serve. My issue with that was the ref was calling the score like a couple seconds after the point was finished, so it made it look like I was serving abnormally fast.”

Coming to her campaign in Dubai, she will take on Anna Kalinskaya in the quarterfinal next and will hope to go all the way.

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