Coco Gauff said seeing Olympic champion Simone Biles in the Arthur Ashe Arena inspired her to fight through the tears and reach the US Open third round. The double Grand Slam cried on court as she sent down seven more double faults in an error-strewn first set against Donna Vekic.<\/p>\n
The 2023 champion here recovered to win 7-6 6-2 in the first match of the evening session on the main court. In her post-match courtside interview, she fought back more tears as she thanked the four-time Olympic champion and the New York crowd. \u201cHonestly, I saw her, and honestly, she helped me pull it out,\u201d said the world No.3. \u201cI was just thinking, if she can go on a six-inch beam and do that with all the pressures of the world, then I can hit the ball in this 75\u2026I don\u2019t know how big this court is.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, yeah, I saw her late in the second getting interviewed by ESPN. Yeah, it brought me a little bit of calm, just knowing her story with all the things she went through mentally.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo she\u2019s an inspiration, surely, and her presence definitely did help me today. We appreciate the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Biles withdrew from the 2020 Olympics because of mental health issues after suffering from \u201chorrific abuse\u201d by the US team doctor.<\/p>\n
The American superstar hired sports biomechanics expert Gavin MacMillan after sending down 23 double faults in Montreal last month.<\/p>\n
She still sent down 10 in her first round match and a total of eight yesterday – and had her serve broken four times in the first set.<\/p>\n
Gauff added: \u201cHonestly, today was a tough match for me, but I\u2019m just happy with how I was able to manage.<\/p>\n
Gauff added: \u201cHonestly, today was a tough match for me, but I\u2019m just happy with how I was able to manage.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a rough couple weeks, but I\u2019m just happy to be back on this court, and you guys bring me so much joy.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou guys really help me a lot. I\u2019m doing this for myself but I am also doing it for you, and no matter how tough it gets inside, you can do it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feed off it a lot. Yeah, I mean I\u2019ve had some tough moments on this court, and you guys pull me through each time, so I really do appreciate it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat first set was tough for me, but you guys stayed cheering for me, so I really thank you guys.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was just trying to tell myself to breathe and honestly just putting another ball on the court and just trying to remember the things that I do well.<\/p>\n
\u201cI honestly don\u2019t remember a lot at the end of the first set, to be honest. But it\u2019s kind of amazing that I was able to get out of that one.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce I was able to reset, I went to the bathroom, splashed some water on my face, and after that I felt a lot better out here. The second set was obvously a lot better.\u201d<\/p>\n
In her ESPN interview, Gauff showed off her nails. \u201cIf I go down, at least I will look good doing it,\u201d she laughed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Coco Gauff said seeing Olympic champion Simone Biles in the Arthur Ashe Arena inspired her to fight through…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":382417,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4105],"tags":[6740,132875,132876,79,1068,5838,16,15,5067,18056],"class_list":{"0":"post-382416","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-coco-gauff","9":"tag-gauff-cry","10":"tag-gauff-tears","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-tennis","13":"tag-tennis-news","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-us-open","17":"tag-us-open-tennis"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115112045670119294","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=382416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/382417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=382416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=382416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=382416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}