"Coco Gauff was never clinically depressed, never diagnosed" - When American's father Corey issued major clarification after her viral comments

Coco Gauff's father Corey once issued a clarification about the American star's comments related to facing "depression" at an early age. Corey cleared any misunderstandings that were created by his teenage daughter's comments.

Coco defeated Venus Williams at 15 in 2019 at Wimbledon which was the claim to fame early in her career. Since then, she has gone on to achieve great heights including a Grand Slam title. However, in a post for Noah Rubin's Behind the Racquet series, she surprisingly claimed to have faced depression when she was much younger.

In the post written in 2020, Gauff wrote:

"Throughout my life, I was always the youngest to do things, which added hype that I didn’t want. It added this pressure that I needed to do well fast," Coco Gauff wrote.

"Right before Wimbledon, going back to around 2017/18, I was struggling to figure out if this was really what I wanted... For about a year I was really depressed. That was the toughest year for me so far."

A teenager talking about mental health struggles caught the eye of the tennis world and there was a lot of talk. However, Gauff's father, who was her coach during her developmental years, cleared out these misunderstandings via an interview with The New York Times.

"That’s the thing that was alarming, and I knew that was going to be the word that got picked up," Corey said soon after his daughters' comments were publicized. "She was never clinically depressed, never diagnosed with depression, never seen anybody about depression."

"There’s no medicine going on. This is a kid’s personal pressure that they put on themselves and how they deal with it and how they mature," he added.

Notably, Rubin also admitted to The New York Times that he took responsibility for not probing further into what Gauff meant by "depressed."

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When Coco Gauff opened up about how her father Corey stepped back from coaching her

Coco Gauff with her father Corey at the 2023 WTA Finals - Source: Getty

Coco Gauff was coached by her father Corey as she developing into one of the biggest young stars of the sport. However, as she was transitioning to the big leagues in 2023 and started facing a slump, Corey took the massive decision to step back and let more experienced people take the reigns.

"My dad is captain," Coco Gauff told ESPN in September 2023. "He’s the one who pushed me to bring Brad [Gilbert] and Pere [Riba] in. He’s the one who said: 'It’s time for a new change, I can’t do it any more. Let’s bring people in.'"

"I didn’t know BG – he’s another generation – but he’s helped me so much. Pere has helped so much. Different generations have pushed me to do well in this one," she added.

The decision was a masterstroke as it helped Gauff win the US Open in 2023. A year later, she decided to part ways with Gilbert and went on to win the WTA Finals as well.