{"id":432857,"date":"2026-01-27T14:02:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T14:02:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/432857\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T14:02:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T14:02:07","slug":"emotional-coco-gauff-smashes-racket-in-frustration-after-australian-open-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/432857\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Emotional’ Coco Gauff smashes racket in frustration after Australian Open loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) \u2014 Coco Gauff smashed her racket into the concrete floor once for every time she dropped serve, and another one for good measure, after her Australian Open quarterfinal loss to Elina Svitolina<\/a> on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The third-seeded Gauff, a two-time major winner, struggled with her serve and recorded five double-faults in the first set, when she was broken four times. <\/p>\n

There were two more service breaks in the second set and, once the match was over \u2014 in 59 minutes \u2014 Gauff stayed composed as she left the center court and tried to find somewhere quiet to vent her frustrations.<\/p>\n

Turns out, there\u2019s pretty much no place in Rod Laver Arena except for the locker rooms that is beyond the scope of the cameras. So, the seven times she pounded her racket into a concrete ramp were far from a private moment following her 6-1, 6-2 defeat.<\/p>\n

\u201cCertain moments \u2014 the same thing happened to Aryna (Sabalenka) after I played her in the final of the U.S. Open \u2014 I feel like they don\u2019t need to broadcast,\u201d Gauff said in her post-match news conference. \u201cI tried to go somewhere where I thought there wasn\u2019t a camera because I don\u2019t necessarily like breaking rackets. <\/p>\n

\u201cI broke one racket (at the) French Open, I think, and I said I would never do it again on court because I don\u2019t feel like that\u2019s a good representation. So, yeah, maybe some conversations can be had.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gauff hit just three clean winners across 15 games, made 26 unforced errors and won 2 of 11 points on her second serve. She got 74% of her first serves into play, but only won 41% of those points.<\/p>\n

It was an usually bad day for a player who made her Grand Slam debut at 15 and won her first major, the 2023 U.S. Open, at 19. She\u2019s still only 21<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Gauff said she felt it was better to shatter a racket than to take out any frustrations on her support team.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re good people. They don\u2019t deserve that, and I know I\u2019m emotional,\u201d Gauff said. \u201cSo, yeah, I just took the minute to go and do that. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s a bad thing. Like I said, I don\u2019t try to do it on court in front of kids and things like that, but I do know I need to let out that emotion.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

More AP tennis: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/tennis<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) \u2014 Coco Gauff smashed her racket into the concrete floor once for every time she…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":432858,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[12083,33424,5113,42962,102518,200479,99,428],"class_list":["post-432857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-australian-open","tag-australian-open-tennis-championships","tag-coco-gauff","tag-elina-svitolina","tag-rod-laver","tag-send-to-apple-news","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432857","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=432857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/432858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}