Coco Gauff revealed that her dad had stopped watching her matches from her player box as she reached the quarter-final of the US Open. The world No 6 battled past the recently unretired Caroline Wozniacki 6-3 3-6 6-1 on Sunday. After the hard-fought win, she said her dad Corey had been “doing laps” of Arthur Ashe Stadium to calm his nerves.
Gauff clinched a hard-fought victory over Wozniacki in the fourth round of the US Open, days after branding the former world No 1 a “legend”. The teenager was dragged into a final set after taking the first, where 2018 Australian Open champion Wozniacki broke the sixth seed in the opening game.
Gauff stormed back to win six games in a row and reach the US Open quarter-final for the second straight year. Throughout the match, the American received vocal support from her camp, including coaches Brad Gilbert and Pere Riba. But one person was noticeably absent – Gauff’s dad and former coach Corey.
The 52-year-old was seen sitting elsewhere in Arthur Ashe and the world No 6 explained that he had been doing laps of the stadium because he was so nervous. “The one thing that’s different is my dad isn’t in the box anymore because he gets too nervous,” Gauff told the crowd after her victory.
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“So he’s somewhere in one of the suites and he has been apparently doing laps of the stadium, I heard, during the matches. So I don’t know if he can hear me right now but I felt his good energy even though I can’t really see him.”
It might have been a good thing that Corey wasn’t in his daughter’s box during her match against Wozniacki, as Gauff could be heard telling her coaches to be quiet as she dropped the second set. After the match, the teenager confessed that the stressful situations sometimes got the better of her.
Asked who the MVP of her coaching team was on Sunday, Gauff couldn’t single anyone out. She replied: “I mean my whole box. I mean, they’re cheering for me. Obviously my coaches, they’re the ones who give me the game plan.
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“Sometimes I do tell them to chill a little bit because I like to think and figure out matches my own way. I mean, the advice helps so I do listen, sometimes it’s a stress reaction.”
Despite the stress of her match against Wozniacki, the world No 6’s game has gone to new heights since she brought Gilbert and Pera on board over the summer. Gauff won her first titles at WTA 500 and WTA 1000 level last month, and she’s still in contention for her maiden Grand Slam crown.
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