The world No 1: Coco Gauff admits ‘temptation’ to fire back at Aryna Sabalenka after controversial comments

Coco Gauff conceded she felt a “temptation” to fire back at Aryna Sabalenka after the Belarusian dismissed Gauff’s achievement following the French Open final.

The American won two sets to one in Paris earlier this month but rather than focus on the second Grand Slam win of her career, the story afterwards was instead on what Sabalenka had said.

While Sabalenka agreed that Gauff was a deserving champion, she went on to suggest the primary reason for the American winning was her poor performance.

The world No 1 later apologised but speaking ahead of the next slam in Wimbledon, Gauff admitted that the initial delay did tempt her to reply.

“It was very weird,” Gauff admitted. “I’m transparent. At first it was a little tempting just because the apology did come a little bit later. I thought it was going to come pretty quick.

“There’s obviously temptation. I wouldn’t be lying, but I don’t know, I just want us to be kumbaya, live happily, hakuna matata, and be happy here.

“I didn’t want to fuel more hate. I’m not the person that will fuel hate in the world. I think people were taking it too far. It wasn’t even more holding someone accountable. It was just really like targeting and saying a lot of things that I felt like were not nice. I
didn’t want to fuel that more 

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“In general and immediately after in my press conference, I didn’t know what was exactly said. I was going based off what someone was saying in the press conference. I didn’t want to say anything unless I saw exactly what was said, too.”

Any possibility of bad blood still being there between the two was put to bed this week when the pair were spotted filming social media videos together on Centre Court.

The 21-year-old Gauff said that while she cannot promise to always get it right in the future, she aims to be someone her brothers can be proud of.

“In general, I’m someone I preach love, I preach light. I feel like I just practice what I preach. If someone were to say something, I feel like most of the time I’m always going to try my best to take the high road.

“I can’t promise in the future I won’t, but I try to just because that’s what I would want someone to look up to. If I’m thinking about my brothers watching me, that’s what I would want them to do.”