CoCo Vandeweghe went a little loco after losing in the first round at the U.S. Open Monday afternoon.
“I’m frickin’ pissed,” she said following a three-set match that lasted 2 hours and 25 minutes before she slammed her tennis racket in defeat. “It sucks.”
Vandeweghe, the tourney’s No. 28 seed and the niece of former Knicks center Kiki Vandeweghe, refused to shake the hand of Irish chair umpire Fergus Murphy after dropping her opener, 7-6, 3-6, 4-6, to unseeded Naomi Osaka on Court No. 13.
She cited her decision to change clothes during a bathroom break as a turning point.
“He was trying to scold me after I went for a bathroom break to change my clothes because I, like, didn’t specifically tell him I was changing clothes,” she said. “I didn’t think he deserved to have my respect for trying to be a parent to me and scold me, and so that is why I decided not to shake his hand.”
Immediately after her serve was broken on match point, Vandeweghe slammed her racket by the baseline before making her way to the net to shake hands with Osaka as temperatures topped 90 degrees on court. Vandeweghe then went straight to her chair and retrieved her equipment bag while Osaka shook Murphy’s hand.
Vandeweghe, 24, walked off with the bag on her left shoulder and her racket in her right hand. She took exception to Murphy’s officiating, and asserted that there was no history between player and official prior to the afternoon’s frustrations.
“I thought he was terrible on both ends, not just for me, but for her, [too],” she said. “You’re gonna miss calls, of course it’s going to happen, but the way he behaved, being on his high horse was kind of lame. It’s not necessary. It’s probably the best way you can say it.”
There was plenty of family in the stands for Vandeweghe, and athletics run deep in a variety of sports for the Vandewghe family. Her mother was an Olympic swimmer and her uncle was the NBA executive who drafted Carmelo Anthony with the Denver Nuggets in 2002. CoCo made waves at Wimbledon in 2015 with her comments about Knicks star Carmelo Anthony, calling him “soft” and lacking a “killer instinct.” She was not sure whether her uncle was in attendance Monday.
She could not pinpoint mistakes that led to her loss and believed her game plan was solid. She recorded 12 aces, but also double faulted 8 times. Osaka aced her 9 times and gave away 5 double faults. Vandeweghe had advanced out of the first round each of the last three U.S. Opens, but has never reached the third round. She came in confident that she could win a match as the world’s No. 30 player.
“I got ready, felt good, practiced well all last week, was ready to play, was ready to win,” she said. “I lost.”
No blame was directed toward her opponent.
“The match was a good match,” Vandeweghe said. “It’s unfortunate that a chair umpire has to [insert]himself into a match because they want to feel important. That shouldn’t happen.”
Asked what was up next for her, Vandeweghe noted that she wasn’t going anywhere just yet.
“I have doubles,” she said. “Doubles and mixed, that’s where I’m heading next.”
