Coco Gauff Breaks Down in Tears Midway Through US Open Match

Coco Gauff overcame her nerves and issues with her serve in a second-round win at the US Open Thursday night.

But her straight sets defeat of Croatian Donna Vekic wasn’t without the tears.

“I just show people what it’s like to be a human, and I have bad days, but I think it’s more about how you get up after those bad moments and how you show up after that,” Gauff, 21, said after the match on Thursday, Aug. 28. “I think today I showed that I can get up after feeling the worst I’ve ever felt on the court.”

Gauff won the first set, but getting to that point was tough enough.

The 2023 US Open champion had seven double faults and lost four of six service games, trailing 5-4 and then 6-5 before forcing a tiebreaker.

At points, the Florida native dabbed away tears and looked unsettled. After she won the first set, Gauff held a towel to her face and her hands were visibly shaking.

But when Vekic used a medical timeout to deal with an arm injury, Gauff took a bathroom break, splashed water on her face and seemingly snapped out of it.

“It was just nerves and just pressure, honestly, and I’m someone that usually can thrive on that,” she said. “There’s been a lot on me this tournament, more than usual, which I expected coming in.”

Just days before the start of the US Open, Gauff fired her coach Matthew Daly and hired biomechanics expert Gavin MacMillan, who is credited with straightening Aryna Sabalenka’s service game, according to ESPN.

As MacMillan, her mom Candi Gauff, and others in her players’ box looked on, the reigning French Open champion steadied herself on the hard court.

“Basically, what you saw out there was what it was, and I was able to reset through it,” Gauff said. “But it was a challenging moment for me on the court. It’s been a tough couple of weeks on and off the court, but I’m just happy to get through it today.”

And she had a little help from another fan: Olympic champion Simone Biles.

As the second set began, the most decorated gymnast in history gave ESPN a live interview in which she spoke about being a role model — and she shared her love for Gauff.

The feeling was mutual after the tennis star advanced to the third round.

“She helped me pull it out,” the world No. 3, who choked back tears after the match, said of Biles. “I was just thinking, if she could go on a 6-inch beam and do that, with all the pressures of the world, then I can hit the ball. It brought me a little bit of calm, just knowing her story, with all the things she went through mentally. She’s an inspiration, surely.”