Coco Gauff revealed she motivated herself before her US Open triumph by reading mean tweets 10 minutes before she stepped on to court. The 19-year-old won her first Grand Slam at Flushing Meadows by defeating Aryna Sabalenka.
Gauff came from a set down to overcome the Belarusian. She revealed afterwards that she has recently been motivated by criticism on social media.
“I have just been embracing every positive and negative thing that’s said about me,” the American said. “I realise, you know, sometimes people have different personalities and some people need to shut off the comments and not look at them.
“But I’m an argumentative person. I’m very stubborn. My parents know. If they tell me one thing, I like to do the other.
“So I really told myself, literally up until, like, 10 minutes before the match, I was just reading comments of people saying I wasn’t going to win today. That just put the fire in me.”
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Gauff named her shock first-round defeat at Wimbledon by Sofia Kenin as a moment when she felt like her dream of becoming a Grand Slam winner had ‘died’. It was at Wimbledon where the then-15-year-old rose to prominence by beating her idol Venus Williams.
She admitted to being very aware of ‘tennis Twitter’ and joked that she knows the usernames of her biggest critics off by heart. Gauff prompted laughter when she said she could not wait to return to the app to see what those people were saying.
Asked about some of her lowest moments, Gauff responded: “I would say for sure a little bit after the Wimbledon loss, honestly. You know, people, I don’t know, I just felt like people were, like, oh, she’s hit her peak and she’s done. It was all hype. I see the comments.
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“People don’t think I see it but I see it. I’m very aware of tennis Twitter. I know y’all’s usernames, so I know who’s talking trash and I can’t wait to look on Twitter right now.
“[But] yeah, a little bit after that. After that, I was, like, okay, I have a lot of work to do. I think it restarted again after D.C. because I felt like I had the belief, but it wasn’t fully there because a 500 to a Grand Slam is a way different level.
“Yeah, I think after that loss. Slightly in the 2020 year with the COVID thing, I felt that was a rough year too. So I think this means a lot to me. I wish I could give this trophy to my past self so she can be, like, all those tears are for this moment.”
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