US OPEN

August 31, 2022

Coco Gauff

Press Conference

C. GAUFF/E. Ruse

6-2, 7-6

THE MODERATOR: Talk us through straight sets. Second set was interesting. Your thoughts?

COCO GAUFF: Yeah, I mean, I knew playing her, I played her at Wimbledon, it was a tough three-set battle, I knew it was going to be another tough battle today.

The set points, I was just saying get the ball on the court. I got lucky. She double-faulted on one of them. That was a little bit of luck.

Other than that I'm super happy with my performance today. I know the next match will be tough, but I'm looking forward to it.

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. In the first set, there was a serve which was 128 miles an hour.

COCO GAUFF: Wow (whistling).

Q. When you hit a serve like that, do you realize how sweet you hit it? Do you think you can go quicker than that? Is that the target one day?

COCO GAUFF: Well, I don't know, I'm not going for the fastest serve, to be honest. Sometimes I say go hard body. I did see the serve clock afterwards. I did see it said 128. I looked at it and I was like, Whoa.

Yeah, I don't know how that happened. It didn't feel like I hit it that hard. Sometimes I feel like when you try to hit the serve hard, it still goes fast, but that was not supposed to be that hard.

I kind of looked at her after. I hit, like, a couple good serves that game, likes in the 120s. She was laughing at her box. I was like, I don't know what's going on either.

Q. You said you were going to wait to see what time you were out tomorrow to decide your plans tonight. Doesn't look like you're too early. Are you going to stay? Who makes the decision? Is that entirely up to you to say?

COCO GAUFF: Oh yeah, it's entirely up to me.

Q. Like a time you're allowed to stay until?

COCO GAUFF: No, they know I'm pretty responsible. I mean, I'm young, I'm 18, but my parents, my team, never police me. I know what I need for myself.

I don't know. I won't be live, like the whole match. I won't be watching it live because I'll be getting treatment. I'll be watching TV here on-site. Maybe at the end if it's not too late I'll catch the end of it.

Like I said, I have doubles tomorrow. If it goes three sets, I probably won't be staying till the end unfortunately. I would love to, but that's the problem when you have to play and when you like tennis as a fan, too. You got to balance the two.

Q. You mentioned something on Monday about how you don't like to read about yourself or hear your voice back. How does that relate to your use of social media during tournaments, how that impacts your head space?

COCO GAUFF: Yeah, I have screen time on my phone to control myself, I guess. It's easy to get sucked into it. Usually when I lose, yeah, I get bad comments. That doesn't really affect me.

Like I said, I need to live more in real life and not online. I feel for, like, a lot of my life, being homeschooled, doing a lot of things alone, traveling on tour, I was always in my room by myself because I like being by myself.

I was like, I need to go outside. What was it Monday, yesterday, I went to walk around Central Park. It was nice. I'm just trying to be more in real life and learn more about myself because I feel like when you are online, you are learning about a version of yourself that isn't attainable, so I'm trying to learn more about a real version of myself.

Q. When you face Madison Keys next, what thoughts will you give to the match that you had against her in February, which was a tough three-setter, that she won? What do you think the challenge will be to face her this time?

COCO GAUFF: Yeah, definitely I think the challenge will be just being aggressive. I mean, she's an aggressive player, so I feel like I need to take my chances when I can.

I learned a lot from that match. In the beginning of the year I feel like in general, I wasn't in a good head space, I wasn't confident in my tennis. I feel like now I'm really confident in my tennis. I feel like that maybe might change the outcome of the match, maybe not.

I can say win or lose, I'm going to be playing confident in my tennis and being satisfied, I hope satisfied, with how I'm playing. Can't look into the future.

I think I'm in a much different head space now. Maybe the result might be different. At least I hope so.

Q. It's six months later. What has given you that confidence?

COCO GAUFF: I think my serve is a lot better. I'm winning a lot of first-serve points. Forehand has improved a lot. Return has improved. Also just my mentality on the court. Today down Love-30, 5-3, definitely could have threw it in the can and got ready for the third set. Same at 15-40. But I didn't. I feel like that shows growth. I feel like in the past, those are games I would have lost.

Yeah, it's about learning, and I think I'm learning.

Q. Speaking of the Love-30 game, four perfect points, aggressive points, to dig out of that. As you tried to continue through the set, seemed like you were going back and forth whether you wanted to be aggressive or drop back. Talk about your analysis. How do you decide how you want to play?

COCO GAUFF: I think it's all about momentum. I think in some parts of the match I was being too aggressive. I think it was 15-30 at the 3-All game maybe, 4-3, I don't know, the game I could have gone up 5-3 in the second, 5-2 or something. I think I went for a backhand and I missed. I was like, I probably shouldn't have gone for that.

It's all about finding the balance. Gabby, she's an aggressive player. Sometimes it's not on purpose being passive. Sometimes she just hits the ball really well so I just have to play defense.

But it's all about finding the balance because there were parts of the match I was too passive, I was getting pushed all around the court. I might just remember that point. Well, I'm going to go down ripping because at least I can set a statement for the third set that I'm not going to just keep pushing the ball on the court. I don't like to play that way. My team doesn't like me to play that way.

I like to be aggressive. That's kind of my identity when it comes to tennis.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you, everyone.

COCO GAUFF: Oh, wow. That was quick (smiling).