Coco Gauff advanced to the Wuhan Open quarter-finals on Thursday after comfortably defeating Shuai Zhang.
After breaking a record held by Qinwen Zheng in the previous round, Gauff continued her good form in the round of 16, winning the contest 6-3, 6-3.
Gauff will now face Germany’s Laura Siegemund in the quarter-finals, after she defeated Magdalena Frech earlier on Thursday.
Gauff won their last match in the first round of the 2023 US Open, 3-6, 6-2, 6-4.
During that contest, a certain issue arose, one that Gauff was not at all happy about.
Coco Gauff complained about the time Laura Siegemund was taking between points
During their US Open clash, Gauff took particular issue with the amount of time Siegemund was taking between each point.
WTA Tour competitions allow for 25 seconds between each point.
As reported by TNT Sports, in the third set, Gauff said to the umpire: “She went over the clock about four times, you’ve given her a time violation once. How is this fair?
“I’m going at normal speed. I go at medium pace speed”.
After the German received a penalty point during the match for a shot-clock violation, she complained to the umpire.
Siegemund said: “She’s [Gauff] serving extremely fast, almost unreasonably fast, and I’m always here, and one time I go to the towel.”
After the contest, Gauff commented on the situation, saying: “I was really patient the whole match. She was going over the time since the first set. I never said anything. I would look at the umpire, and she didn’t do anything.
“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.”
Gauff would later say: “I really don’t like confrontation all that much. I was thinking about it the whole match. I wasn’t sure if I was in the right or not until it happened multiple times. Then I was like, Okay, I know I’m in the right.
“I think it just reached a point where I was just really frustrated. For me, I try my best not to let my emotions to take over myself. I wanted to express my frustration, but also being censored. I didn’t want any bombs to fly or anything. I was trying to best communicate how I was feeling to the referee.”
She later added: “I didn’t want to come off as a complainer. Sometimes being in the public image, you think about all these actions that doesn’t have to do with tennis, like talking with the ref, throwing the racquet, banging the racquet. It’s stuff that I think about, honestly.
“It is something that I think about, my maturity level, because I know it’s something that people look at a lot. I know you do one wrong move, people are going to call you all types of names and tear you down.
“Today I think it was important to show you can do all this, still stick to your ground, and people are going to respect you. I think as long as you approach a person with respect, then everything should be fine.”
Gauff, who is perhaps the best of a strong current crop of American players, went on to win her maiden Grand Slam title at the 2023 US Open, defeating Aryna Sabalenka in the final.
Laura Siegmund was unhappy with the US Open crowd
After the intense contest, an emotional Laura Siegemund expressed her dissatisfaction with the Arthur Ashe crowd.
During her post-match press conference, she said: “It’s the first time I’m crying in a press conference.
“As a tennis player, you are a performer, you owe the people, you owe the kids that watch. You owe people that buy tickets for a lot of money.
“At the end of the day I can go home and I can look at myself and I can say, ‘I did a great job.’ But did I get anything from the people for that?
“Maybe it’s not zero, maybe it feels like zero right now, but it feels pretty much like a flat zero.
“Even less than a zero because they treated me bad. They treated me like I was a cheater, like I was trying sneaky ways to win this match. They treated me like I was a bad person.
“But, you know, there are people who are throwing rackets, who are screaming, who are making bad gestures towards 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 rule, I get my time violation and that’s fine.”
Gauff says Siegemund is a ‘very tricky’ player ahead of clash
Sky Sports commentator Jonathan Overend previewed Gauff and Siegemund’s 2025 Wuhan Open clash, noting the tension during their previous contest.
He said: “She [Gauff] will play Laura Siegemund, who was her first opponent on her run to the title in Flushing Meadows two years ago, and it was a long match as well.
“I remember a lot of frustration about the delay that Siegemund was putting on things, a famously slow player, the German.”
After defeating Zhang on Thursday, Gauff said of Siegemund: “She’s a very tricky player, very experienced, it will be another tough match, but I’m looking forward to it.”
Gauff is scheduled to play Siegemund for the third time on Saturday.
