Emma Raducanu gets Goco Gauff backing and told to ‘mute noise’ after sad US Open admission | Tennis | Sport
Coco Gauff has admitted that she understands what Emma Raducanu is going through after the Brit opened up on the pressure she faced after winning the 2021 US Open as a teenage qualifier. The 20-year-old recently admitted that she wasn’t in a safe and trusting space after her breakthrough. And Gauff explained how she navigated the same problems in her own career.
Raducanu recently opened up in a new interview with The Times and confessed that she sometimes wished she had never won the US Open. The former world No 10 said she had been burned a few times since her historic victory almost two years ago, and that she was forced to be “on guard” from the tough space that was the tennis tour.
And she has now received some support from a fellow teenage sensation in Gauff. The American broke through at Wimbledon when she was just 15, upsetting Venus Williams en route to the fourth round in her own Grand Slam debut. Now 19 and a mainstay in the world’s top 10, Gauff had learned how to block out the external pressure.
“I think it’s just your support system and just taking it week-by-week,” she told a small group of reporters in Eastbourne. “And for me, you hear a lot so I think for me the best part is just to mute the noise and focus on myself and don’t focus on what other people are saying.”
While Gauff knew how to tune out the extra stuff, she said she knew what Raducanu was talking about. The world No 7 continued: “And yeah I completely understand what Emma is going through.
“A lot of people will say a lot of things in media and won’t come up to you directly and say it. Not just fans but even like people commentating on matches and things so I completely understand her point of view.”
It comes after Raducanu’s heartbreaking admission about her US Open victory, when she lifted the title as an 18-year-old qualifier in her fourth-ever professional tournament. “I am resilient, my tolerance is high, but it’s not easy. And sometimes I think to myself I wish I’d never won the US Open, I wish that didn’t happen. Then I am like, remember that feeling, remember that promise, because it was completely pure,” she said.
The 20-year-old added: “I had to mature very quickly. When I won I was extremely naive. What I have realised in the past two years, the tour and everything that comes with it, it’s not a very nice, trusting and safe space.
“You have to be on guard because there are a lot of sharks out there. I think people in the industry, especially with me because I was 19, now 20, they see me as a piggy bank. It has been difficult to navigate. I have been burnt a few times. I have learnt, keep your circle as small as possible.”
Raducanu is currently sidelined after undergoing triple surgery last month. But the Brit will be able to take some solace in having a rival who understands what she is going through and has already been able to navigate similar pressures.