"For a year I was really depressed, that was the toughest": When Coco Gauff shared her mental health struggles coping with pressure after breakthrough

Coco Gauff’s rise in tennis has been nothing short of extraordinary. From a young age, she was labeled a prodigy, achieving milestones ahead of schedule. However, behind the success, there was a difficult period that she later revealed almost made her walk away from the sport.

In 2019, Gauff burst onto the scene as a 15-year-old, stunning Venus Williams in the first round of Wimbledon and making a dream run to the fourth round. But in a post for Noah Rubin’s Behind the Racquet series in 2020, Gauff reflected on an earlier time when the pressure of being a teenage phenom became overwhelming.

"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. I always had the results so that wasn’t the issue, I just found myself not enjoying what I loved. I realized I needed to start playing for myself and not other people. For about a year I was really depressed. That was the toughest year for me so far."

Her words quickly gained attention, but her father, Corey Gauff, later clarified that she hadn’t been clinically diagnosed with depression.

"That’s the thing that was alarming, and I knew that was going to be the word that got picked up," he told The New York Times. "She was never clinically depressed, never diagnosed with depression, never seen anybody about depression."

Rubin himself admitted he could have pressed further on what Gauff meant by “depressed,” acknowledging that it’s a “trigger word.”

For Gauff, this difficult time came after she reached the US Open junior final at just 13 years old. She struggled to connect with her peers and felt like she didn’t have many friends. At one point, she even considered taking a year off from tennis just to focus on life.

Ultimately, Gauff found her way back to enjoying the game—on her own terms.

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Coco Gauff credits the resilience she showed during low points in her life for who she is now

Coco Gauff with the US Open 2023 trophy - Source: Getty

In the same post for Behind The Racquet, Coco Gauff credited this phase in her life to becoming who she is now. She wrote:

“I was just lost. I was confused and overthinking if this was what I wanted or what others did. It took many moments sitting, thinking, and crying... I came out of it stronger and knowing myself better than ever. Everyone asks me how I stay calm on court and I think it’s because I accepted who I am after overcoming low points in my life. Now, when I’m on court, I am just really thankful to be out there.”

Coco Gauff later went on to earn more accolades and bag more titles. In 2023, she became the youngest American woman to win the US Open since Serena Williams. A year later, she became the youngest WTA Finals champion since Maria Sharapova in 2004.