Controversies and disappointments: How Coco Gauff and other American women wasted Olympic ‘golden’ chance

There’s no point in beating around the bush: the American tennis players who played in the women’s and men’s singles at the Paris Olympics disappointed expectations. And perhaps much worse between the two were the stars of the women’s singles, who also gave life to drama moments much more interesting than their performances.

Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul played a decent tournament in singles (in a draw dominated by Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic), the girls – especially Coco Gauff, Danielle Collins and Emma Navarro – disappointed, considering how for them it would have been a golden opportunity (in nomen omen). The defeats of Iga Swiatek, the final between Donna Vekic and Qinwen Zheng. Gauff, Navarro, Collins (and I add Jessica Pegula) have substantially disappointed expectations, playing performances that did not live up to their talent and throwing away a very important chance. Amid a thousand controversies

In the match lost against Vekic, Gauff attacked the umpire for having called a very dubious ball, stating that she often feels like the victim of errors of this kind committed by umpires: “It has happened to me several times this year, where I feel like I always have to defend myself on the court.”

Navarro, after the defeat against Zheng, had revealed that she does not respect the Chinese tennis player: “It is difficult to face an opponent like that, that I really do not respect. I just told her that I do not respect her as a competitor, I think she approaches things in a rather ruthless way. A locker room where there is not much camaraderie.”

The most sensational is however the issue that occurred in the semifinal between Collins and Swiatek. Between toilet breaks and balls thrown at the opponent, it was one of the most grotesque moments of the year.

“I told Iga that she shouldn’t be insincere about, you know, my injury. There’s a lot of things that happen on camera, and there’s a lot of people with a lot of charisma who come out and are one way on camera and another way in the locker room. And I haven’t had the best experience, and I don’t really feel like anyone needs to be insincere. They can be who they are. I can accept that, and I don’t need the fakeness,” Collins said after the match, harshly attacking the WTA No.1.