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Coco Gauff Opens Up About How Her Fast Rise to Tennis Fame Led to Depression

Tennis star Coco Gauff just turned 16 last month, but she’s already become a household name in the world of sports and beyond thanks to her upset of Venus Williams, and a deep run into the 4th round, at Wimbledon in 2019. The boost in her profile also made her a must-watch at last year’s US Open where she eventually lost to another young tennis phenom, Naomi Osaka.

The pressure of the sport and the spotlight can be intense even for a grownup, but imagine all of that attention coming to you when you’re barely old enough to drive. Gauff recently opened up about just how difficult it’s been for her in an emotionally candid new post on Behind the Racquet, a platform that allows players to tell their stories in their own words.

“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,” she writes. “That was the toughest year for me so far. Even though I had, it felt like there weren’t many friends there for me. When you are in that dark mindset you don’t look on the bright side of things too often, which is the hardest part. I don’t think it had much to do with tennis, maybe just about juggling it all. I knew that I wanted to play tennis but didn’t know how I wanted to go about it. It went so far that I was thinking about possibly taking a year off to just focus on life. Choosing not to obviously was the right choice but I was close to not going in that direction.”

“I was just lost. I was confused and overthinking if this was what I wanted or what others did,” she continued. “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.”

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Maya Hawke on the Stranger Things Hype, Fame, and What’s Next

A big part of that involves Robin coming out. After Steve confesses his feelings for Robin, she reveals her own truth: She was obsessed with him in high school—because the girl she liked had a crush on him. Steve accepts Robin warmly; by the season’s end, they’ve become best friends. “You know, there’s probably not a lot of people coming out in high school in Indiana in the 1980s,” Hawke says. “I think the reason she comes out is because she loves Steve and wants him to understand why she has to reject him and doesn’t reciprocate his feelings. It’s to preserve their friendship, and I think she wants to be her whole self with him.”

Hawke says the decision to make Robin gay came after a lot of conversations with the Duffer brothers. “We were trying to decide if that was the right thing for her, if it was natural, if it felt like who she was supposed to be,” she explains. “We just wanted to make sure nothing about it was forced.”

Eventually, though, it became clear: “It was the only true thing. When I go back and watch the episodes I shot before we made that decision, it seems so obvious to me that’s what was meant to happen.”

Hawke is grateful the scene was handled with “the most care.” If it has a greater cultural impact, all the better. “There’s a difference between having diversity in television and having diversity in hit TV shows, the shows that are in everyone’s living room,” she says. “You can get right into their heart by getting into their homes, and having empathy for characters and stories can broaden one’s empathy for people in the world. There were conversations about how that could be important or impactful, but really the decision came down to what was right for Robin.”

“I think the most important thing was that [Robin’s coming out] was original; we tried to have it be really uniquely her and not like a generic coming out scene in a big TV show.”

Of course, Steve isn’t the only new friend Robin makes. The whole Scoops Troop, which includes Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) and Erica (Priah Ferguson), became a pseudo-family on and off screen. “She was really nice and gave me good advice,” says Ferguson of working with Hawke. “She told me to always stay kind. I learned a lot from her.”

As the Troop’s two newest additions to Stranger Things, Hawke says she couldn’t help but share some advice with Ferguson. As she explains, she grew up seeing her family navigate the pressure of being in the public eye—and how to avoid it.

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