Serena Williams’ former coach Rennae Stubbs defended America’s rising star Coco Gauff on her loss against Iga Swiatek in the ATP China Open’s semi-finals.
Ukrainian star Iga Swiatek and the teenager Coco Gauff faced off against each other in the Chinese Open 2023. This marked their 9th match against each other. Their last encounter had gone in the favour of Coco Gauff who had defeated Swiatek 7-6(2), 3-6, 6-4 in three sets. However, Swiatek would go on to take her revenge and dominated Coco Gauff throughout the game, eventually qualifying for the finals with a 6-2, 6-3 win.
This loss would mark the eighth loss of her career against Swiatek and would snap the American teenager’s 16-game win streak as well. Her lacklustre performance against the reigning World No. 1 would bring her a lot of criticism, especially on social media platforms from tennis fans.
Reacting to this criticism, Rennae Stubbs, an esteemed commentator and former coach of Serena Williams said that the criticism Coco was getting was nothing but crap. In her opinion, the anonymous people reacting to the American’s loss are a bunch of hypocrites who don’t understand sports and the mentality of the athletes.
“The crap i read on Twitter is 🤯! People commenting on Coco being this or that as well as other players. Like seriously u people think you’re tough writing as an unknown loser who puts a player down but have never put themselves out there in these kinds of moments! 🤯 get a life!,” Stubbs tweeted.
The crap i read on Twitter is 🤯! People commenting on Coco being this or that as well as other players. Like seriously u people think you’re tough writing as an unknown loser who puts a player down but have never put themselves out there in these kinds of moments! 🤯 get a life!
— Rennae Stubbs 🇦🇺👍🏼 (@rennaestubbs) October 7, 2023
When one fan replied to Stubbs’ tweet saying that the athletes are built tough and should be capable enough to handle such kind of criticisms from fans, Stubbs trolled the guy and asked about his job instead.
“They are professional sports people. It comes with the territory… Don’t be soft,” the fan wrote.
“Here he is peeps, that guy! Gianni what do u do for a living, out of curiosity?,” Stubbs mockingly responded.
“After I won my first Roland Garros, 2 months I was going the wrong path,” Iga Swiatek on ignoring social media distractions
Iga Swiatek recently opened up on the distractions of social media and how she struggled to deal with it after winning the Roland Garros in 2020.
The current World No.1, Iga Swiatek continued her excellent run of form in Qatar to win her third straight Qatar Open. The Ukrainian is now scheduled to play at the Dubai Tennis Championships. Addressing a press conference ahead of the competition, Swiatek was asked about the distractions of social media and how it affects a player’s mentality.
“I would say I’m doing good job, like, separating that. I don’t use really social media during the tournaments. I just post my stuff and that’s all. For sure, when I go on social media when I’m not playing tournaments, yeah, it can distract a person. I would say also when you start making successes, having successes, it’s easy to focus on the business part of the sport and forget what you are actually here to do, the work that you should put.”
Swiatek remembered her time after winning her first Grand Slam in France and how she derailed due to the distractions from social media.
“I remember after I won my first Roland Garros, like 2 months I really was going the wrong path. The practices weren’t a priority in my schedule, in my head, you know? I remember my team had to kind of push me right back on the right path,” Swiatek said.
