Gauff on added pressure before breakthrough: "Right before Wimbledon, I was struggling to figure out if this was really what I wanted"

Coco Gauff has been heralded as the next female tennis prodigy and so far has lived up to that hype reaching the fourth round at Wimbledon and Australian Open in 2019 and 2020.

It wasn't always so easy though for the 16 year old American as she reflected early admitting that there was period when her mental health wasn't the best due to initial pressure put on her and that something suddenly clicked in her mindset.

“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," said Gauff to Behind the Racquet.

"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."

She added: "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."

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