'They Said I'm Only Hype': Gauff Opens Up About 'Shushing Haters' After US Open Win
WTA
Coco Gauff has no problem 'talking the talk' because she actually 'walked the walk' at the recently concluded US Open.
For a good chunk of her career, Coco Gauff was talked about in 'potentials' because she didn't do anything spectacular then. She reached a Grand Slam final, but we're talking about a player who seemed destined to win 10-15 Grand Slams, so the narrative changed when she failed to do that early on.
Whether that was rightfully so or not is debatable, but the 19-year-old is now a Grand Slam champion. She beat the new world no. 1 on the WTA Tour, Aryna Sabalenka, in the final fair and square to win the trophy, and it couldn't have happened in a better place than New York.
There aren't many brighter lights than those in the Big Apple, and she certainly put on a show worthy of Broadway. After the win, Gauff had some things to say to her detractors, and it probably felt excellent. She did what they thought she couldn't.
In an interview with the WTA after the final, Gauff expanded on being considered all hype but not much else. The turning was at the Citi Open in Washington when she realized she fed off that criticism. It motivated her greatly to try and prove all the doubters wrong.
Before, I would just mute all the words and not go on my account, delete the account, and all these types of things. I realized that my personality is not like that. My parents, they know I'm stubborn and I like to prove people wrong. So the more I read it, the more it made me want to prove them wrong.
Before the Citi Open triumph, Gauff hadn't won a trophy more significant than the 250 tier. The Citi Open at that time became her biggest trophy won, but not for long because she added a WTA 1000 trophy in Cincinnati only to add the US Open trophy after that.
In D.C., I saw a tweet, "She's only 250 Coco." I won that WTA 500 tournament in D.C. Then people were like, that's going to be it, it was a flop win. Then I won the WTA 1000 in Cincinnati and people were saying I only won that because certain players weren't rested and weren't physically well and that would never translate into a Slam.
Before my match tonight, people were like she's going to crush her. She's going to take her to school and diminish the hype. They said I'm only hype. There is something very satisfying about shushing your haters. I'm really curious to go on and see what else they're going to say now.
