Explaining the tennis rule that helped to end Coco Gauff’s Olympics run

Coco Gauff of the United States lost 6-7, 2-6 to Croatia’s Donna Vekic in the Olympic women’s singles tournament, but the match was overshadowed by a controversial line call decision in the second set as Gauff was trying to stage a comeback.

The dispute led to an argument of several minutes during which Gauff said repeatedly that the point should have been replayed. “You have to understand this is not fair,” she said on the court before the match resumed.

Here’s what happened, the rules surrounding the incident, and why Gauff was so frustrated by the official decision.

What happened?

At 2-3, 30-40, Vekic returned a second serve from Gauff.

She caught the ball slightly off-center, causing it to loop back deep into the center of the court, pushing Gauff back behind the baseline. Gauff set up in her full forehand ready position, able to prepare fully because of the speed of the ball.

As the ball bounced, extremely close to the line, a linesperson called Vekic’s shot out as Gauff swung into the forehand.

Gauff then pulled up on her follow-through, sending the ball into the net.

Immediately after the call, the linesperson said “correction,” which is the word umpires use to overrule a call. This meant he judged the ball from Vekic to be 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 time in the match.

What is the rule?

The ITF (International Tennis Federation) rules govern the Olympic tennis tournaments.

Regarding the overruling of line calls, Case 7 is as follows:

“If a chair umpire or line umpire calls ‘Out’ and then corrects the call to good, what is the correct decision?

“Decision: The chair umpire must decide if the original ‘Out’ call was a hindrance to either player. If it was a hindrance, the point shall be replayed. If it was not a hindrance, the player who hit the ball wins the point.”

The rule puts chair umpires in an impossible – and completely avoidable – position.

Why impossible?

Because umpires have to go inside the mind of a player and decide whether the out call hindered the swing of the player. In almost all cases, the answer would figure to be yes, since calls are made as soon as the ball bounces and generally before the racket makes contact with a ball. It’s generally accepted that a loud yell while, or even before a player is hitting a ball is a disruption. It’s why umpires are constantly saying “quiet please.”

Gauff discussed the decision with both the umpire and the tournament supervisor. (Patricia de Melo Moreira/AFP via Getty Images)

Gauff argued about whether the call came before she hit the ball. Audio of the incident suggests that it did come after her shot. Yet according to the rule, that doesn’t even matter. The issue is whether the call, whenever it came, disrupted her — whether it was a “hindrance,” the rulebook says.

She said it caused her to pull up on her swing. The umpire said it did not.

So why was this avoidable?

Video line calls happen throughout top-level 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 close to the players. A computer never gets overruled, and does not incorrectly call a ball out in the middle of a player’s backswing.

What did Coco Gauff say about it?

Immediately following the overrule from the chair umpire, Gauff said “(the linesperson) called it out before I hit it, so I went up on the ball.” Pulling out of a full follow-through on her forehand, as she did, contributes 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 then broke down in tears, saying “it always happens to me on this court.” She was referring to a previous, similar incident against Iga Swiatek in the semifinal of this year’s French Open. “It always happens to me at French Opens, every time,” she said. “I always have to advocate for myself on this court, all the time.”

“I feel like I’m getting cheated on constantly in this game,” she added when speaking to tournament supervisor Clare Wood. “It happens to me, it happened to Serena,” referring to Serena Williams, who felt that umpire Carlos Ramos “stole” points from her during a U.S. Open final against Naomi Osaka in 2018, and was subjected to a litany of completely incorrect line calls in a match against Jennifer Capriati at the US Open in 2004. The calls during that 2004 match prompted an apology from the United States Tennis Association (USTA) and partly led to the introduction of Hawk-Eye video calls, which at the time were only used for TV viewers.

Several egregious line errors went against Williams at the 2004 US Open. (Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)

Before returning to the court to serve down 2-4, Gauff said: “It’s not fair at all. You guys are not fair to me and I hope one day that the game becomes fair but it’s not.”

When has this happened to Gauff previously?

As Gauff made her case to Campistol and Wood, she made references to previous rulings on tour that went beyond the French Open and the Olympics.

“This is the third time it happened (this year). It happened to me in Dubai, it happened to me here, and both times I was right. I have never argued calls and you know this, but this isn’t fair. This isn’t fair. I feel like I’m getting cheated on constantly in this game. I constantly feel like that, and I have to argue,” she said.

During her French Open semifinal defeat to Swiatek last month, a line judge erroneously called Swiatek’s serve out in the second set. Gauff swung at her return, sending a backhand return a couple of feet wide. The chair umpire overruled the call on the serve but also ruled that the call had not affected Gauff’s ability and opportunity to return the ball unhindered. So Swiatek got the point.

Gauff and chair umpire Aurelie Tourte discuss the decision at the French Open. (Tim Clayton/Corbis via Getty Images)

A tearful Gauff approached chair umpire Aurelie Tourte, and during their exchange said that the crowd was “booing because they know (she) is wrong.”

After the match, 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 that happened to me, but every sport has it.

“There are so many decisions that are made, and it sucks as a player to go back or online and you see that you were completely right, and it’s, like, what does that give you in that moment?”

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The incident in Dubai that Gauff referred to came in a round-of-16 match against Karolina Pliskova back in February.

On that occasion, Gauff hit a first serve that was in and was returned into the net by Pliskova. The serve was erroneously overruled by the umpire, Pierre Bacchi. Gauff challenged the call and Hawk-Eye — not present at the French Open — showed the ball to be in.

But unlike when Gauff missed her return against Swiatek in similar circumstances and lost the point, this time the umpire deemed that Pliskova had been affected by the call, and so the point was replayed. A frustrated Gauff spoke to Bacchi for almost five minutes and requested to speak to the tour supervisor — a request that wasn’t granted.

Gauff steadied herself and won the match, saying afterwards that the incident “fueled” her victory. Against Swiatek, Gauff did eventually break in the game in question, but then lost five of the next six to succumb to defeat.

On Tuesday, Gauff lost the final two games after the disputed call, despite racing to 0-40 on Vekic’s serve immediately after it happened.

Why is there no video replay in tennis at the Paris Olympics?

Earlier this month, David Haggerty, the president of the ITF, which organizes the Olympic tournament, said that the decision to not use video and computer line calling occurred during the initial planning stages for the tournament over the past three years.

Ever since video and computer line calling became a thing, clay-court tournaments have argued that the computer system is not as accurate as it is on a hardcourt since the lines are slightly raised, because they are made of plastic and nailed into the court.

However, in recent years, the designers of the system have corrected for that, and some clay-court tournaments, like the Masters 1000 in Madrid, do employ computer line calling. Haggerty said that shift occurred too late to make the change for the Olympic tournament.

Most systems aren’t 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 makes the argument that the computer is worse than a human. The computer system is accurate to within roughly three millimeters. Humans judging balls, moving at 150mph in some cases, can’t get close to that.

How did Donna Vekic react?

It’s important to remember that there was someone on the other side of the net for all this. When serving at 4-2, Vekic paused for a long time before both her first and second serve, mouthing, “It’s not my fault,” between serves as the crowd booed her. She then went down 0-40, before saving three break points and winning the game in a highly charged moment for both players.

After the match, Vekic said, “It’s a very tricky situation.

“I personally thought the umpire made a good decision because the call came quite late, but I will have to rewatch it,” she said. “It’s tough to know in the moment. After that, with the crowd, it was not so easy. I lost my concentration for a couple of points, but I’m happy that I managed to come back in that game (to fight off the break points) because it was an important game.”

Additional reporting: Nicole Auerbach, James Hansen and Charlie Scott

(Top photo: Patricia de Melo Moreira / AFP via Getty Images)