Corey Gauff opened up on his daughter Coco Gauff's recent comments about her mental struggle.
In a post for Behind The Racquet (a tennis publication), the teen prodigy described how she has been dealing with depression.
However, her father revealed that she was not clinically depressed and the context has been blown out of proportion.
He added she is not taking any medicine presently.
Quote
Coco has never been diagnosed with depression, says Corey
"That's the thing that was alarming, and I knew that was going to be the word that got picked up. She was never clinically depressed, never diagnosed with depression, never seen anybody about depression," Corey Gauff told The New York Times.
Coco Gauff
2017-18 was the toughest year for me: Coco Gauff
Gauff termed 2017-18 the toughest year of her life wherein she did not love what she was doing.
"Going back to around 2017-18, I was struggling to figure out if this was really what I wanted. I realized I need to start playing for myself and not other people. I was really depressed and that was the toughest year for me," she said.
The publisher of Behind the Racquet Noah Rubin later apologised for mentioning this context in the post.
Rubin conducted a telephonic interview for writing it.
He later apologised for error in judgement.
"It's completely my fault that I didn't go deeper into what she meant by depressed. I feel she was definitely sad and questioning tennis at periods in the past," he said.
Achievements
Gauff broke into the top 50 in February
Coco Gauff took the world by storm after reaching the last 16 in her first ever Wimbledon appearance (2019).
She was handed a straight-set defeat by Simona Halep.
Gauff also made it to the pre-quarter final stage in the Australian Open 2020.
She broke into the top 50 in February, thereby becoming the first 15-year-old in 15 years to achieve the feat.
