(January 27, 2026) American Coco Gauff destroyed her racquet off court, thinking that she was out of sight of broadcast cameras after she was beaten by No. 12 Elina Svitolina in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open on Tuesday night.
For Svitolina of the Ukraine, she has now reached her first Australian Open final four.
She’ll be back in the Top 10. “Always been my dream to come back in Top 10 after maternity leave, that’s always been my goal.”
Svitolina will bid to reach her first major final against No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka who leads their head-to-head record at 5-1.
“For me it’s all about trying to find new ways to win now,” Svitolina said in her news conference. “There are so many young players. There’s so many aggressive players who, if you’re not at your best, they are just taking the match from you. So you have to evolve your game. You have to be better. You have to try to find the ways to find something that works for you. For me, it’s all about trying to be better every week, because you know, tennis evolvement is not stopping. So you have to always keep searching.”
World No. 3 Gauff had her serve broken six times in the devastating loss in just 59 minutes.
“Certain moments — the same thing happened to Aryna (Sabalenka) after I played her in the final of the U.S. Open — I feel like they don’t need to broadcast,” the 21-year-old Gauff said in her news conference. “I tried to go somewhere where I thought there wasn’t a camera because I don’t necessarily like breaking rackets.
Seems that there is no place in Rod Laver Arena with the except for the locker rooms that is out of range of TV cameras.
“I broke one racket (at the) French Open, I think, and I said I would never do it again on court because I don’t feel like that’s a good representation. So, yeah, maybe some conversations can be had.”
“I don’t think it’s a bad thing. Like I said, I don’t try to do it on court in front of kids and things like that, but I do know I need to let out that emotion.”
“I think I played well, “ Svitolina said. “I think I dealt with it well. As Coco is such a great champion, you know, she came back couple of times in our matches being one set down. For me, I tried to keep building, keep trying to play well and tried to really stay focused from the start until the end.”
