"He’s from Spain, we’re working on his English" - Coco Gauff reveals hilarious Rafael Nadal anecdote involving her coaches at Citi Open

Coco Gauff shared a hilarious anecdote involving Rafael Nadal when asked to explain her on-court conversation with her coaches at the Cici Open.

Gauff is currently competing at the WTA 500 event in Washington, where she faced defending champion Liudmila Samsonova on Saturday, August 5. The American came through the contest 6-3, 6-3 to reach the final.

In her post-match interview, former doubles World No. 1 Rennae Stubbs asked Gauff about a particular conversation she had with her coaches during the match:

“You looked at your player box & said external focus. Can you explain what that means or is that a secret?”

The 19-year-old laughed and explained that she was just correcting her coach, who mixed up the words "internal" and "external."

“No, it's not a secret. My coach Pere [Riba] does not know the difference between external and internal focus. And we were trying to explain that difference to him,” she said.

“And external focus because yesterday somebody had an accident during my match and I was able to get back in game within the next two games. And I was saying, I have external focus. And I think the top players like Rafa [Nadal] have external focus and he thinks that they have internal focus,” she added.

Gauff recently took on former Spanish tennis player Pere Riba as her coach after splitting with coach Diego Moyano. The World No. 7 stressed once again that there was no secret and that her coach is still working on grasping the English language.

“It's not a secret. I was just telling him the difference. He's from Spain. So we're working on his English and everything,” she said with a hearty laugh.

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Coco Gauff eyes fourth WTA title as she takes on Maria Sakkari in Citi Open final

Coco Gauff in action at the 2023 Citi Open.

Coco Gauff got the better of defending champion Liudmila Samsonova to reach the Citi Open final, making her the first teenager to reach the summit clash at the tournament. She needed just one hour and 42 minutes to defeat the 18th-ranked Samsonova, which was also her 20th career victory over a Top-20 player.

The 19-year-old has been in scintillating form in Washington, losing just 14 games en route to the final. Sakkari, however, holds the advantage heading into the title match, as she leads 4-1 in the head-to-head against Gauff.

Gauff said she can't deny that the Greek has had the upper hand so far and explained that she isn't going to learn a lot even if she rewatches the pair's previous meetings.

"Yeah, I don't really mind when people bring it up, because it happened. I'm not, like, in denial of the past. The only thing is to try and learn from it and improve," she said at her press conference.

"I'm going to have to watch those matches and see what I did wrong. Honestly, sometimes even, like, when I played Belinda [Bencic], I didn't even watch the match before. When I played Liudmila, I didn't watch the match I did before, because I do feel like I'm just viewing it different. So there's no point in looking at what I did then because I'm not in that same mentality," she added.

If Gauff manages to defeat Sakkari, she will take her fourth career WTA Tour singles title and second of 2023, after Auckland.