{"id":192469,"date":"2025-09-30T14:36:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T14:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/192469\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T14:36:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T14:36:08","slug":"coco-gauff-and-belinda-bencic-clash-over-china-open-mind-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/192469\/","title":{"rendered":"Coco Gauff and Belinda Bencic clash over China Open \u2018mind games\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Coco Gauff<\/a> said that her \u201cpettiness\u201d helped her to beat Belinda Bencic<\/a> at the China Open<\/a> in Beijing, after the Swiss player accused the American\u2019s team of \u201cmind games.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bencic clashed with Gauff\u2019s team in the sixth game of the second set, as she prepared to serve down break point but leading 6-4, 2-3. On the previous point, Bencic had hit a poor drop shot that Gauff returned for a winner, drawing celebrations from her box. Bencic told Gauff\u2019s box to \u201cshut up,\u201d saying that they should not have been cheering \u201cbefore I serve\u201d and comparing the situation to \u201cunder-12s\u201d tennis.<\/p>\n

Gauff said, \u201cI treat your team with respect, you treat my team with respect,\u201d before adding that her team were not cheering before Bencic\u2019s serve.<\/p>\n

Bencic ultimately held serve for 3-3, before breaking Gauff, who hit three double faults. \u201cImmediately after that, next game I was frustrated, threw three doubles,\u201d Gauff said in her news conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut after that I was just like, \u2018OK, I don\u2019t want to lose anymore after this point.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI was able to just buckle down. I think it was almost good for me in a way. I think I can play sometimes a little bit better when I\u2019m annoyed, more so not with myself but with something else,\u201d Gauff said.<\/p>\n

It was Bencic who unraveled, complaining to the chair umpire about Gauff\u2019s box when they sat down with the Swiss up 4-3 in the second set and two games from victory. Gauff interjected, to which Bencic replied, \u201cNo one\u2019s talking to you, she\u2019s talking to me, OK? Your team is chanting! I\u2019m too old for these mind games!\u201d<\/p>\n

Gauff broke in the next game and went on to win the second set in a tiebreak, before taking the third to win the match 4-6, 7-6(4), 6-2. The pair shook hands cordially at the end of the match and Gauff said there was no lingering ill feeling. \u201cShe\u2019s entitled to how she felt and I\u2019m entitled to how I respond,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI obviously have a lot of respect for Belinda. She\u2019s a great player, coming back and playing great tennis as a mom. Yeah, I obviously wish today didn\u2019t happen, but it is what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Gauff observed during the initial confrontation, the close-to-empty stadium in Beijing \u2014 which is hosting a men\u2019s and women\u2019s tournament in parallel \u2014 and lack of crowd noise magnified the noise from both players\u2019 boxes and also the intensity of any confrontation. Players jaw with opponents\u2019 teams on a regular basis in tennis \u2014 it just goes more unnoticed because of all the other usual noise in a stadium.<\/p>\n

Gauff now moves on to play Eva Lys of Germany, who reached her first WTA 1000 quarterfinal by beating McCartney Kessler of the U.S. 4-6, 6-1, 6-2. Gauff, who qualified for the season-ending WTA Tour Finals by beating Bencic, is the defending champion in Beijing.<\/p>\n

(Photo: Lintao Zhang \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Coco Gauff said that her \u201cpettiness\u201d helped her to beat Belinda Bencic at the China Open in Beijing,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192470,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-192469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}