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Cori Gauff said she was "being really patient and nice" before she confronted chair umpire Marijana Veljovic about Laura Siegemund's behavior. Early in the third set of her US Open first-round match, Gauff confronted Veljovic about Siegemund needing a lot time between points.
Gauff, ranked at No 6 in the world, felt Siegemund was deliberately slowing down play and she told Veljovic it was "ridiculous" and "unfair" during their discussion. That moment came with Gauff leading 3-0 in the third set and preparing to serve on a deuce.
Siegemund ended up getting one break back in that game but Gauff managed to keep her focus and close out the match with a 3-6 6-2 6-4 win.
Gauff on why she confronted the chair umpire
"Yeah, 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. Then obviously the crowd started to notice that she was taking long, so you would hear people in the crowd yelling, Time, doing the watch motion.
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.
As you guys know, you've watched my matches, I'm not a fast server. I'm not a slow one. I'm like right in the middle. That was getting annoying, too. It wasn't like we were having long rallies. I know sometimes after a long rally, the ref waits a few seconds.
I totally get that. But we were having two-ball rallies. It would be eight, I would count in my head, and then the score would be called. It was just a lot of that. I was finally happy when the time violation came. But obviously on my serve, I was like, She has to be ready when I'm serving.
I'm not a fast server, but obviously when you're calling the score eight seconds later, it looks like I'm serving 24 on the clock. Usually I look at the clock and try to serve around the 14-, 15-second mark," Gauff said.