Coco Gauff Admits Struggle With Panic Attacks After Emotional US Open Breakdown

Coco Gauff is through to round four of the US Open. This marks her 16th grand slam fourth round appearance. Her age? 21 years. Gauff stormed into the fourth round after a breezy straight sets victory against #28 seed Magdalena Frech with a scoreline of 6-3, 6-1 at the Arthur Ashe Stadium. Gauff’s journey in the tournament so far has been a rollercoaster. Just six days after biomechanist Gavin MacMillan hopped on board the coaching team of Gauff, she entered the hard court major with little training and a boatload of serving woes.

While MacMillan’s presence boosted Gauff’s morale, she still struggled in her first round against Aussie Ajla Tomljanović with her new service motion in what she described as a ‘high pressure situation’ for experimentation. Gauff, though still trudging through the game with 10 double faults and 6 lost service games, won in three sets with a scoreline of 6-4, 6-7 (2), 7-5. According to Gauff, this achievement was a small milestone worth celebrating. She believes winning in first-round match-ups of this grand slam are difficult than the finals.

For her second round, she was pitted against Croatian Donna Vekic. The match itself was temperamental as both players struggled with their serve. Vekic committed 9 double faults in the first set against Gauff’s comparatively lesser 7. When the scoreline of the first set was 4-4, Vekic took the lead to 6-5 and forced the game to a tiebreaker, which Gauff won. During the changeover, Gauff looked gaunt. She buried her face in a towel, her hands shuddering as she sobbed. A few moments later, Vekic requested a medical timeout and for a physio to treat her agonizing right arm and shoulder.

Gauff excused herself to the washroom during this break for a water splash in the face reset. In a snap, Gauff was back on court practising her serves while Vekic was being attended to. Gauff’s persistence paid off as she stormed through the second set to victory with a scoreline of 7-6(5), 6-2 leaving Vekic behind to dust. In a YouTube video uploaded by SkySports, Gauff got candid about the breakaway moment when the analyst probed Coco on the pressure she felt during her match with Vekic.

Gauff was visibly distressed when tasked with playing on home soil. She cracked under the duress of it all, especially after she lost the first-set lead to a rogue Vekic wonder. Yet Gauff was able to topple the scoreline back in her favor at the tiebreaker. When the weight of it all descended off her shoulders, Gauff had a brief moment in the towel. When asked if it was her pressure release mechanism, Gauff responded with honesty, “Um, no.. I.. it was.. I mean, it was, I think a panic attack. I’ve had them before off court, but it was the first time that happened to me on the court.” After all, even the stars of tennis are human too.

Clearly overwhelmed, Gauff “was just trying to calm myself down and just breathe in the moment.” She found her reprieve and renewed will in the washroom, “And that was kind of why I went to the bathroom after that first set to reset. And, yeah, I think, you know, yeah, it was one of those moments that I just was like, I want to get off the court right now and it be over with.” Then came Gauff’s moment of reckoning, through the crowd. The stadium erupted for Coco in a display of solidarity, to tell her that she wasn’t alone, “But I think for me, I needed that to happen because I think the support that I got afterwards, I just realized how much people love me and how much I should love myself too in those moments.”

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