The tennis star has been open about wanting to keep her relationship private, explaining that it helps keep some parts of her life more special to only her. Gauff has been dating her boyfriend for nearly a year, she told TIME, marking her first adult relationship, having recently entered her 20s.
“This is my first real relationship,” she said. “To just have someone to talk to who is not involved in tennis at all gives me a fresh perspective.” When Gauff started getting in her head the night before the U.S. Open finals in September 2023, she leaned on her boyfriend to help calm her.
She told reporters after her U.S. Open win that she attributed her 2022 French Open loss to thinking too much about winning and envisioning herself with the trophy, and explained she didn’t want to do that this time around.
“Honestly, I didn’t have any of those visions [of winning] till last night,” she said. “You know, I thought about it, but I told myself to get it out of my head, because that’s what I did at French. I was envisioning, you know, what would happen if I would win. I think I wanted it too much.”
The tennis star added that calling her boyfriend helped distract her.
“Last night, I started a little bit, but honestly, I just called my boyfriend, and I told him let’s talk until it’s time to go to sleep so we spoke until 1:00 a.m. and then I went to sleep,” Gauff told reporters
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