As she watched the video announcing Rafael Nadal’s retirement, Coco Gauff acknowledged that she started to cry.
The 22-time Grand Slam winner announced on Thursday that he will call it quits at the end of the month. In response to the news, Gauff shared her memories of the retiring star and disclosed that she had recently passed over Carlos Alcaraz in favour of Nadal.
The Davis Cup Finals next month will mark Nadal’s final appearance and his career’s end on home soil, a revelation that stunned the tennis world.
Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic were among those who sent heartfelt messages to their longtime rival in the flood of tributes. And now Gauff has revealed how she feels about Nadal’s approaching retirement.
Gauff talked about it and said: “Yeah, he was or is my favourite person to watch. These retirements, we talk about like they’re dead. But he is my favourite person to watch practice honestly. The intensity that he brought on the practice court and obviously on the match court is something that I felt like watching is unmatched.”
Even though Gauff is aware that every player must retire, the 20-year-old acknowledged it was tough to witness his announcement.
She added: “Watching the video, [I was] a bit emotional because Rafa is all I’ve known growing up. Yeah, he’s all I’ve known. Pretty sure he’s won Roland Garros for the majority of my life. Yeah, I guess it’s something that’s unfortunate. It’s going to happen to everybody one day. Hopefully, it was completely on his terms. I know maybe this year he didn’t have as many injury-free moments as he wanted to. Overall, the career he had is something that players and people dream of.”
And among the American’s fondest memories is the recent Olympics, when she passed over Alcaraz in favour of Nadal since the 38-year-old had a pin to trade.
She concluded: “He was super nice with that. We were both waiting on the shuttle. It was the last shuttle of the day, like 11 pm. I asked him if I could have one of his pins. He gave me one. Carlos was there, too, but Carlos didn’t have any pins. I only took the picture with Rafa there. I was like, ‘Carlos, you can’t be in it because you didn’t give me a pin.’ Yeah, just something like that I’ll remember. And something I’ll definitely tell my kids because it meant a lot to me.”
Gauff in Wuhan, ranking, and results in 2024
At the moment ranked no.4, the American has achieved a compiled 50-15 win-loss record in 2024. Gauff is currently competing in Wuhan where she ousted Unknown Player bye, the world no.48 Viktoriya Tomova 6-1 6-2, the world no.17 Marta Kostyuk 6-4 6-1 and the world no.45 Magda Linette 6-0 6-4.
Coco Gauff will compete against the world no.213 Sinja Kraus in the . In the past, they have never played each other as of now in top tournaments.
The American conquered 2 titles in 2024 in Auckland and Beijing.
The American won 8 titles in her career: 6 on hard courts, 1 on clay courts and 1 on indoor courts. (See the list of her titles)
Rafael Nadal in 2024
Now the world no.158, the Spaniard played his last match on the 29th of July when he surrendered to world no.4 Novak Djokovic 6-1 6-4 in the 2nd round in Paris (draw).
Currently, during this season Rafael achieved a compiled 12-7 record. Rafael Nadal’s most significant result of the present season was getting to the final in Bastad.