Two former US Open champions have now started to sing the same song against Wimbledon but to a different tune! After Sloane Stephens and Coco Gauff, Emma Raducanu has also now joined them to say a word or two on the ongoing cheating in practice matches saga. Raducanu had missed last year’s Wimbledon Championships due to injuries but this year she came strongly clinching a victory over Mexico’s lucky loser Renata Zarazua in R1. She’ll now take on Belgium’s Elise Mertens in her next match on Wednesday (July 3), but before that, she shared her thoughts on playing against cheaters in practice matches.

Tennis players are often found calling their lines while practicing with their fellow counterparts. Expecting these professional stars to follow the free and fair approaches in these light-hearted matches is quite obvious. However, there have been reported instances when a few players felt their opponent didn’t miss a chance to cheat in even the practice matches. It all started when American tennis star, Sloane Stephens revealed that she thought she had once accidentally cheated in a practice match with a fellow athlete, whom she admires.

Then Coco Gauff revealed how some players like to “call the lines a little bit too much.” Reflecting on the same, Emma Raducanu recently said, “I’ve been hooked (laughter). I think with me, I genuinely don’t like calling my own lines ’cause I feel like I can’t see. I always just try and ask someone who I’m on court with to call the lines for me.” She further added, “But for me when we’re in practice playing points if it’s an inch in, an inch out, it doesn’t necessarily matter. Like it’s practice at the end of the day.” However, for some players, she feels it’s the “biggest thing ever“. At that time, she prefers to let them have it, and “You just got to laugh it off.“

Coco Gauff also refused to drop a name on this incident but she was quite certain that some of her fellow WTA players cheated even at practice matches. Here’s what she said about that in her recent interview.

“Yeah there are some girls” – Coco Gauff admits foul play in practice matches

During her post-match press conference, Coco Gauff admitted that there are some players on the Tour who like to call the lines a little bit too much in practice matches. So, they were kind of having a laugh out of that recently. When asked to elaborate on that Gauff said, “Yeah, there are some girls, I don’t know if it’s intentional or not. But a lot of times it’s probably girls who maybe were like cheaters in juniors and they just have the habit.” She revealed that whenever such situations arise in her practice matches, she prefers to just move on from that rather than digging too deep into it. But who are those players?

“It’s not anybody that you would think. I know people are going to probably think and say maybe Ostapenko because she does that. But, no, she’s actually one of my favorite people to practice with. She’s just funny, ” Coco Gauff said in that conversation. Jelena Ostapenko has a long history of debating calls during her matches. However, with Gauff taking a stand for the Latvian, made the tennis fans a bit surprised.