Coco Gauff's father clarifies 'depression' remark

By Parth Dhall

Apr 21, 2020

11:44 am

What's the story

Corey Gauff opened up on his daughter Coco Gauff's recent comments about her mental struggle. In a post for Behind The Racquet (a tennis publication), the teen prodigy described how she has been dealing with depression. However, her father revealed that she was not clinically depressed and the context has been blown out of proportion. He added she is not taking any medicine presently.

Quote

Coco has never been diagnosed with depression, says Corey

"That's the thing that was alarming, and I knew that was going to be the word that got picked up. She was never clinically depressed, never diagnosed with depression, never seen anybody about depression," Corey Gauff told The New York Times.

Coco Gauff

2017-18 was the toughest year for me: Coco Gauff

Gauff termed 2017-18 the toughest year of her life wherein she did not love what she was doing. "Going back to around 2017-18, I was struggling to figure out if this was really what I wanted. I realized I need to start playing for myself and not other people. I was really depressed and that was the toughest year for me," she said.

Instagram Post

The Instagram post published by Noah Rubin

Repost from @behindtheracquet • “Throughout my life, I was always the youngest to do things, which added hype that I didn’t want. It added this pressure that I needed to do well fast. Once I let that all go, I started to have the results I wanted. Right before Wimbledon, going back to around 2017/18, I was struggling to figure out if this was really what I wanted. I always had the results so that wasn’t the issue, I just found myself not enjoying what I loved. I realized I needed to start playing for myself and not other people. For about a year I was really depressed. That was the toughest year for me so far. Even though I had, it felt like there weren’t many friends there for me. When you are in that dark mindset you don’t look on the bright side of things too often, which is the hardest part. I don’t think it had much to do with tennis, maybe just about juggling it all. I knew that I wanted to play tennis but didn’t know how I wanted to go about it. It went so far that I was thinking about possibly taking a year off to just focus on life. Choosing not to obviously was the right choice but I was close to not going in that direction. I was just lost. I was confused and overthinking if this was what I wanted or what others did. It took many moments sitting, thinking and crying. I came out of it stronger and knowing myself better than ever. Everyone asks me how I stay calm on court and I think it’s because I accepted who I am after overcoming low points in my life. Now, when I’m on court, I am just really thankful to be out there. Personally for me, I like playing for more than myself. One of the biggest things is to continue breaking barriers. At the same time I don’t like being compared to Serena or Venus. First, I am not at their level yet. I always feel like it’s not fair to the Williams sisters to be compared to someone who is just coming up. It just doesn’t feel right yet, I still look at them as my idols. With all their accolades I shouldn’t be put in the same group yet. Of course I hope to get to where they are but they are the two women that set the pathway for myself, which is why I can never be them.” @cocogauff Go to behindtheracquet.com for extended

A post shared by cocogauff on Apr 14, 2020 at 3:10pm PDT

Apology

Noah Rubin apologized for error in judgement

The publisher of Behind the Racquet Noah Rubin later apologised for mentioning this context in the post. Rubin conducted a telephonic interview for writing it. He later apologised for error in judgement. "It's completely my fault that I didn't go deeper into what she meant by depressed. I feel she was definitely sad and questioning tennis at periods in the past," he said.

Achievements

Gauff broke into the top 50 in February

Coco Gauff took the world by storm after reaching the last 16 in her first ever Wimbledon appearance (2019). She was handed a straight-set defeat by Simona Halep. Gauff also made it to the pre-quarter final stage in the Australian Open 2020. She broke into the top 50 in February, thereby becoming the first 15-year-old in 15 years to achieve the feat.