Coco Gauff’s opponent ridiculed for bad sportsmanship after losing (video)

Jelena Ostapenko offered excuses instead of congratulations after Gauff’s stunningly thorough victory

By Terry Shropshire
Sep 06, 2023
3:40 pm

Coco Gauff’s vanquished opponent Jelena Ostapenko is being billed as as twice the loser after first getting steamrolled on the court, then retreating to a press conference where Ostapenko uttered excuses to explain away her embarrassing defeat.

Gauff played arguably her best tennis during the quarterfinals at the U.S. Open, the last of the Grand Slam tournaments of the year. The precocious 19-year-old sensation delivered a thorough evisceration of Ostapenko, 6-0, 6-2, to become the first teen to make it to the semifinals since her idol Serena Williams did it in consecutive years 22 years ago.

Instead of offering plaudits to Gauff for her superlative performance, however, Ostapenko chided U.S. Open officials for the favorable schedule for Gauff as the major contributing factor for her victory, thus inciting anger from fans.

Lol okay whatever Jelena. You are great for the sport but this complaint is going to have zero takers. First of all today is Tuesday; you got back to the hotel at 2am on Monday morning and went to sleep at 6am Monday morning and had no scheduled matches for the day, unlike Coco

— Chewy Yorkie (@ChewyYorkie) September 5, 2023

“I got back to the hotel around, like, 2:00 a.m. and even I tried to go to sleep at 3:00 in the morning but I had all this adrenaline and it was impossible to fall asleep,” Ostapenko said.

The Latvian also said she felt Gauff had a more comfortable schedule coming into their clash.

“Then when you go to sleep at 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning, the whole day where you need a few days just to recover. I think it’s a little bit crazy. I think it was better for her the schedule, because obviously she played much earlier the day I played night session,” she added.

Ostapenko’s blabbering soliloquy triggered intense backlash from fans who said she was whining and embittered. Others pointed out that Gauff had less time to rest and recover as she played a doubles tournament on Monday while Ostapenko had the day off after her previous match on Sunday.