There is crying in tennis, apparently.
After CoCo Vandeweghe was ousted from the US Open’s Semifinal by Madison Keys, 1-6 2-6, she seemed to take the loss very hard and fought back tears in her post match press conference.
“I think it’s hard to look back on it now, the way I’m feeling right now,” Vandeweghe said, “but it’s an amazing experience to be in the semifinal, to be here playing for my country and to know that I worked this hard to get here, but it’s a pretty crummy feeling right now.”
Say what you want about Vandeweghe, but her emotional nature is refreshing. Her fiery nature on the court makes it easy to pull for her, especially in her hometown of New York and seeing her take a loss like this hard, although tough to watch, shows the human side of these players.
Too many times, these players are very guarded. Venus Williams is notorious for being very nice at her press conferences, but when you read back her quotes, she told you nothing.
And sometimes these players will get testy, like Sloane Stephens, who snapped at a reporter at the end of her presser.
Maybe it’s her family that has helped Vandeweghe over the years. Having a few NBA players, a beauty pageant winner, and an Olympian in the family does that for you.
She also took her lumps, so Vandeweghe’s success this year is even more special to her.
“I have made a lot of strides into what I want to be as far as interim goals of this year,” she said. “It’s a step closer to where I want to be, but definitely not, by any means — by any means, it’s not the end. I think this year has a lot of positives to it, for sure.”
No, we don’t think she’s done either. Vandeweghe’s tennis career won’t be like KiKi’s Knick career – very good teams that fall short. There’s still progress to be made.
And we are seeing a change in the guard, as Vandeweghe joins Stephens and Keys as the new guard in American tennis.
Hopefully, she continues and hopefully those tears will turn to tears of joy.
As a consolation, though, Vandeweghe still is alive in Mixed Doubles, so maybe she will have tears of joy here in Flushing Meadows by the end of the weekend.
She worked hard and deserves it.
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