Gauff happy to forget Sabalenka row: “I don’t hold a grudge”
The American said Sabalenka’s words at Roland-Garros after their final were all “water under the bridge”
Coco Gauff, Wimbledon 2024
Coco Gauff said she is not the kind of person who “holds a grudge” as she looked to put the spat with Aryna Sabalenka behind her and focus on her bid to add Wimbledon to her burgeoning Grand Slam trophy cabinet.
The American said she understood where Sabalenka was coming from when she spoke candidly on court after the French Open final, when Gauff took the title after 70 unforced errors from the world No 1 in tricky, windy conditions.
And though Gauff did balk at the suggestion that had Iga Swiatek beaten Sabalenka in the semis, she would have beaten the American in the final, she also accepted Sabalenka’s recent apology, which she repeated and expanded on in press on Saturday, after the pair had danced together in a TikTok video.
“Obviously some people were critiquing what she said in the speech,” Gauff told reporters at Wimbledon on Saturday. “I didn’t really care about any of that because I know how it feels. I understand what she was trying to say.
“It was a terrible condition day. I don’t think I was playing well either, so I understood where she was coming from with that. Obviously some of the stuff that was said in the press, I think I was a bit more surprised about.
“But I’m not someone to hold a grudge. I was talking to my circle about it. I was like, if she apologises, like, not even publicly, it was just more so privately, I will be fine, and we’ll move on. She did, and she did again when I saw her before we practised.
“It’s just water under the bridge. I know Aryna. I felt like before that, we got along pretty well anyways before all that happened. It wasn’t very hard to accept that apology.”
