Gauff reveals her inspiration: “Maybe I feed from negativity. I like to prove people wrong”

Coco Gauff is not your ordinary teenager. That much has been clear for several years already, not just in the way she deals with adversity and finds her best form at the biggest moments, but also in the way she conducts herself off the court.

On Monday, she returned to action for the first time since winning her first Grand Slam title at the US Open, beating Ekaterina Alexandrova 7-5, 6-3 in the first round of the China Open.

When the 19-year-old won the US Open last month, she made a point in her winner’s speech of thanking those who doubted her, the critics who said she would never win a slam. On Monday, she delved a little deeper into her psyche and explained why she loves to confound her critics.

“I feel like my brain just works different,” she said, when asked how she deals with criticism on social media. “I still have the filters on my Instagram. I don’t see anything. I see the comments.

“I used to not be on Twitter at all. I’m still really not on Twitter much. But sometimes you get caught up in the scroll. The way the page is, the accounts that you interact with, you see yourself. I interact with tennis a lot obviously, so those tweets come up. Obviously I see about myself, positive and negative.

“I’m very stubborn, I like to argue”

Gauff said she uses criticism for motivation.

“I wouldn’t say negativity is something that’s welcome,” she said. “It’s more, I don’t know, something that I draw inspiration from. I wouldn’t recommend everybody to do that.”

“Most of the time it’s negative things, but it’s not like life-threatening things. Some of those comments can get out of hand. But for the most part, I don’t know, it’s weird, maybe I feed from negativity. That’s weird. A lot of players don’t like it. For me, I’m very stubborn. I like to argue. I like to prove people wrong.

“My agent and my team advise not to comment back, so I use my racquet to do it.”

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