Coco Gauff, who shot to fame by reaching the Wimbledon last 16 as a 15-year-old in 2019, is the latest leading WTA Tour player to write a BBC Sport column.
In her latest piece at the Australian Open, the American seventh seed talks about how she bounces back from a tough defeat like the one she suffered against Jelena Ostapenko in the fourth round.
My immediate feelings after I lost in the singles were, of course, disappointment and frustration.
I was feeling disappointed because I felt like I played well – I was decent on the stats for the most part – but Jelena Ostapenko was just better.
And I felt frustration because I was feeling good in the tournament and to lose when you’re feeling good makes it extra annoying.
But, overall, I do think I improved in this tournament and I played some of the best stuff I’ve played in a while.
This experience will motivate me to come back stronger.
Learning from the hard losses is the only thing you can do. If you try to forget about it then you will never learn and never improve.
I usually analyse a loss the day after because it is always tough when you’re fresh off the court – it seems like you’ve done everything wrong. Losing in a major feels way worse than any other tournament.
Immediately after the match, my coach Diego will ask me if I want to talk and usually the answer is ‘no’. After Sunday’s match, I didn’t talk about it.
Both my parents and Diego respect when I don’t want to talk and I’m totally grateful for that.
My parents always give me a hug after a defeat and my mum probably feels the worse out of us all, I think.
But since I was playing again in the doubles on Monday I just focused on that and will deal with everything else later.
Before it would be hard for me to talk about losses but now I’m in the headspace where I can eventually talk about it and want to learn about it.
Losing sucks but if you can go through how you felt in the match and how you felt in certain moments then you can come back and be better.
Tough thinking of yourself as a new face of the game
With Serena Williams retiring, I feel like people are eager to see a new face of the game emerge. But it is tough as a young player to think of yourself as a ‘face of the game’.
Everyone wants it to happen now but you have to put into perspective the ages of us younger players coming through. To be a face of anything – not just tennis…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at BBC Sport – Tennis…