{"id":608228,"date":"2026-04-26T22:54:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T22:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/608228\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T22:54:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T22:54:08","slug":"coco-gauff-reaches-fourth-round-despite-vomiting-on-court-at-madrid-open-tennis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/608228\/","title":{"rendered":"Coco Gauff reaches fourth round despite vomiting on court at Madrid Open | Tennis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Coco Gauff described how difficult it has been for players to remain healthy at the Madrid Open this year after she reached the fourth round despite vomiting on court and struggling with a virus that appears to have torn through the locker room<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I got a little cocky because I\u2019ve been at tournaments where there were viruses and I never got it,\u201d she said. \u201cI saw it going around, I was like, \u2018I\u2019m not going to get it.\u2019 And then here I am. I think it\u2019s hard because you don\u2019t know who\u2019s sick, who\u2019s not. I do a good job at using hand sanitiser and washing my hands and wiping my [training] mats and stuff before I use them. But sometimes some things are just hard to avoid when you\u2019re all in a big building like this and have to pass each other and use the same equipment. Hopefully everybody\u2019s all good by Rome.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the first few rounds of the Madrid Open, the focus has been on the various retirements and withdrawals due to illness, with Madison Keys, Liudmila Samsonova and Marin Cilic<\/a> all prematurely ending their tournaments. The Frenchman Corentin Moutet said he was sick after his second-round loss and the former No 1 Karolina Pliskova also said she had been feeling under the weather during her 7-5, 2-6, 7-6 (3) win over the 19th seed Elise Mertens.<\/p>\n

Coco Gauff receives medical attention during her match against Sorana Cirstea. Photograph: Manu Fern\u00e1ndez\/AP<\/p>\n

The most high-profile retirement so far was Iga Swiatek<\/a>, who registered just her second career retirement in her third-round match against Ann Li. \u201cThere is something going on between players that the virus is somewhere on site, so I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll be fine in a couple of days, but I had zero energy and zero stability,\u201d said Swiatek.<\/p>\n

Gauff had appeared to be heading for a similar fate when she vomited while trailing Sorana Cirstea 4-6, 3-4. She sought out the trainer, who provided medication to manage her nausea, and she recovered to secure a 4-6, 7-5, 6-1 win.<\/p>\n

It is not uncommon for viruses to spread between players at tournaments, where they share many communal areas and training equipment. Earlier rumours attributed the illnesses to shrimp tacos served in the player dining area but players have been told that the event has been affected by a general virus around the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t eat the shrimp, so I don\u2019t think it was that,\u201d said Gauff, smiling. \u201cI think it\u2019s just a virus going around between the city, and then I think the players got it. I think I got it from another player that was sick and their locker\u2019s close to mine, so I probably got it from that player. But, yeah, what can you do except just try to get through it? It\u2019s the first time I\u2019ve gotten sick since I\u2019ve been on tour, so I\u2019m not too upset. It\u2019s, like, whatever.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Coco Gauff described how difficult it has been for players to remain healthy at the Madrid Open this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":608229,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-608228","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608228","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=608228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608228\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}