Defending US Open champion and 20-year-old tennis superstar Coco Gauff is sincere when she speaks and maybe a little too honest. After her second-round 6-4, 6-0 victory over German Tatjana Maria, Gauff was asked about protecting herself from social media negativity.
“It just depends on the platform,” she replied, before getting more specific. “Twitter, I’m really not on. I only searched one time after a match to see what people thought of my outfit,” she said while laughing. She also revealed that she searched the outfit Naomi Osaka wore in her first US Open match.
“Yeah, usually, Twitter, I’m not on as much,” she continued. “Instagram, I’ll be on and give myself, like, 24 hours. I’ll be on my Instagram until maybe the end of tomorrow, and then I’ll not be on it. Well, on my main account. I do have burners, so I don’t see any of the tennis stuff. TikTok, I’m on most of the time, but I also do have a burner, so I don’t see any tennis. I’m on social media all the time, it’s just whether I’m on my actual account or not. But Twitter is the only one that I’m not on at all because even with the burner, I don’t know, the phone hears me speak, and I don’t know. My name comes up. I don’t know if that’s a real thing, but I believe in it.”
On the tennis court, Gauff was not happy with her performance despite the win and practiced immediately after the match.
“I just hit serves,” she responded, when asked what she did on the practice court. “Obviously, I didn’t serve great at all. I got lucky. I think I only got broken once, but I probably could have, should have, gotten broken a couple of more times. So I just hit serves. Off the ground, I felt fine. I felt like I was playing well off the ground for the most part. Obviously, in the first set, I probably had more errors. But, you know, when you play against her [Tatjana Maria], you just have to expect to miss sometimes, because you also don’t want to just get into a pushing rally. So, yeah, I just hit more serves.”
Gauff will play Ukrainian Elina Svitolina tomorrow, Aug. 30, at the 2024 US Open.
