Coco Gauff scared her fans during the fourth-round match at the 2023 Roland Garros, but confirmed everything was fine afterward.
On her quest to reach yet another final in Paris, the young American defeated Anna Karolina Schmiedlova in two sets. It marked Gauff's third consecutive quarterfinal at the Roland Garros, but it wasn't without drama.
And the drama wasn't necessarily caused by the fact that the 19-year-old lost a two-break lead in the first set. During one of the rallies, she fell, and her knee started bleeding, prompting a need for a medical assistance.
But during the post-match press conference, Gauff dismissed any injury talks as she disclosed that she only scraped her knee and that it's something that happened to her in the past, so surely it isn't a reason for worries.
"Oh, it's fine. I just scraped it. I did it in the match before also, on a different knee. It's something that, I don't know, reminds me as a kid I used to always scrape my knee as a kid. I've never gone to clay season without scraping my knee. Last year here I had that crazy fall too."
The American admitted that it didn't even hurt, and the reason why she called the medical stuff was to stop the bleeding but also prevent possible infections.
"Yeah, it doesn't hurt. I just had the ref ask if I wanted it to be clean, and I kind of forgot about it. I looked down and I saw it's bleeding. I was like, Oh, yeah, it's probably wise if I get it cleaned. I didn't really want it covered, so I ended up taking the cover off. You hear about infections and stuff so I didn't want that. But yeah, no pain, it's just bleeding."
Up next, the teenager will meet with a very challenging opponent, in fact, the most challenging on the WTA Tour right now probably. The first-seeded Iga Swiatek will stand in her way after she needed to spend only 29 minutes on the court during her fourth-round match. Speaking ahead of the match, Gauff remained really positive.
"Yeah, I mean, I guess obviously from a scouting standpoint, yeah, I have to rewatch that match because I don't think I've played her on clay since, I've played her on other surfaces. I don't know if the surface will matter that much. So I will rewatch some previous matches to see where I've gone wrong (smiling)."
The American wasn't really successful against Swiatek in the past and she certainly wants to change that this year, and that's why there's a lot of confidence in her statements ahead of the highly-anticipated quarterfinal match.
"But, yeah, I guess the revisiting part for like the mentality, yeah, I mean, it's in the past. You know, in a positive way, not like I lost in the final, I don't want to think about it. It's more so I don't want to make the final my biggest accomplishment, I guess. I want to keep moving forward and keep reaching further heights."
0 Comments