USA Women’s Tennis Players Are Taking Heat For Sore Loser Behavior At Paris Summer Olympics

Matt Fitzgerald·
CULTURESPORTS
·
US tennis
@isaacjohnsonMEN

For as much as the United States has to be proud of re: Olympic history, the women’s tennis team from the 2024 Paris Summer Games will decidedly not go down in American lore as one of the best. Or even close to it. In fact, a lot of weird-energy antics, underachievement, and disappointment came to define this year’s squad.

Despite having four of the top 11 seeds in the ladies’ singles draw, Danielle Collins was the only American to even reach the quarterfinals. And in bowing out of the tournament, she didn’t exactly go out with a lot of class.

Collins was forced to retire with an apparent injury during the decisive third set against Poland No. 1 seed Iga Świątek. What would seem like a rather harmless exchange out of context was actually a bizarre case of Collins calling out her opponent for being insincere in her congratulations about Collins’ career.

Świątek provided details after the match, with the key passage in the lengthy transcription below being this one:

“I don’t know what she meant because we didn’t even have any interactions that could have caused her to say that to me.”

Worth noting that Świątek hit a full-on serve right into the stomach of her semifinal opponent, China’s Qinwen Zheng, during a straight-sets loss for reasons unknown.

In any event, reviews for Collins’ conduct haven’t been too kind.

Probably the worst part about Collins returning to the court hours later for doubles is that she and Desirae Krawczyk lost in the second round.

Speaking of Zheng, though, she was at the center of controversy with another USA player, Emma Navarro. After splitting a couple tightly contested tiebreaker sets to open their third-round match, including a blown match point by Navarro, Zheng took control in the decider 6-1 to advance to the quarterfinals.

This prompted Navarro to tell Zheng to her face that she “doesn’t respect her as a competitor” and doesn’t know how she has so many fans.

The 21-year-old Zheng retorted, “I will not consider it an attack because she lost the match.” BURN. Fans are none too pleased about how Navarro represented herself.

But OK. I can live with a little petty vintage U.S. butthurt-ness from players who aren’t really household names but were hoping that they could make a name for themselves in the Olympics. These women have zero Grand Slam titles in singles or doubles between them. Never would’ve heard of them if not for the Olympic stage. No offense!

Coco Gauff was our nation’s best, brightest hope. A co-flag bearer for the USA alongside LeBron James, I thought it was almost a lock that she’d take home some hardware this year — especially since she and Jessica Pegula were the top seed in the doubles draw. Gauff was also the No. 2 seed in the women’s singles event.

So much for all that hype. Croatia’s 13th seed Donna Vekić bounced Gauff in straight sets. Karolína Muchová and Linda Nosková of Czechia knocked out the Gauff-Pegula tandem in a third-set tiebreaker. Gauff even had a crack at mixed doubles with Taylor Fritz, but they got eliminated in the quarterfinals.

During a key point in her singles defeat, Gauff got super emotional as she stated her case to the umpire over a line call, which she ultimately appeared to be wrong about.

To summarize: The ball was incorrectly called “out” by the umpire a split second after Gauff had already hit her return shot, which went out. Then she tried to blame the umpire for her shot. Or at least that’s how I understand it.

Again, not getting a lot of sympathy from the X/Twitter crowd.

Maybe I’m being too results-oriented about all this since she came up so small in the Olympics, but Gauff has gotta be better than this. Reigning U.S. Open champion. Past world No. 1 player and current No. 2.

Just a really tough look all around for U.S. women’s tennis in Paris.

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