'Definitely Not Intentional': Coco Gauff Defends Iga Swiatek Over Doping Case
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Coco Gauff and Iga Swiatek might not be the best friends, but the American player still defended her rival when sharing her honest thoughts about the Pole.
At the moment, Gauff and Swiatek are definitely two of the three best players on the WTA Tour. The third one is, obviously, Aryna Sabalenka, who is the World No. 1 player.
Although all three of them are exceptionally good, for a moment, it seemed that Gauff wouldn't be able to challenge Swiatek. That was because the Polish player won in 11 of their first 12 meetings.
Recently, the American player managed to turn the tide. She beat Swiatek at the 2024 WTA Finals, and she also outplayed her at the United Cup this year.
It was after that meeting that Swiatek gave her opponent a relatively cold handshake that had the tennis community talking. In fact, multiple players were asked about cold handshakes during their pre-tournament press conferences at the Australian Open in reference to the handshake between Gauff and Swiatek.
Gauff, however, doesn't hold any grudges. Ahead of the 2025 Australian Open, she was asked about Swiatek. In particular, the American player was quizzed about the confidence of the Pole.
Since her doping case was made public, it might have seemed that Swiatek lost a bit of confidence, but according to Gauff, that has not been the case, especially because she believes that the Pole didn't do anything intentional.
"No. I mean, I wouldn't say she's dropped her confidence. For me, I don't know like her personally well, but just from the interactions that we've had, I definitely don't think anything she did was intentional."
Gauff referenced their match, saying that it was essentially decided by a few points, which is true. The American won it 6-4, 6-4, but it was an extremely high-quality match, which was also very close.
"I feel like I don't think she was maybe -- I mean, like I found out with the rest of the world. I don't think she is not confident in herself. She's playing great tennis."
"The match we played, I just happened to be a little better that day, maybe won a few points. It could have easily went the other way. I think she's fine."
At the end of the day, Gauff admitted that she doesn't know Swiatek well enough to judge if she was impacted by what happened, but from what she was able to observe from the outside, the American player thinks that nothing changed for her rival.
"I don't know her well enough to tell you if she feels some type of way about it. Yeah, I can just say from what I see I think she's doing fine. She's still No. 2 in the world and playing amazing tennis. She's always going to play amazing tennis, so... Yeah, I think she'll be fine."
