MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Coco Gauff shrugged her right shoulder and chuckled a bit Monday at the notion that she seems to elicit concern from others when she goes through a two- or three-match losing streak — a rough patch in the course of a long season.
“Sometimes when I don’t do well, people think there’s something personally wrong with me,” Gauff said on the eve of the Miami Open, where the women begin main-draw play on Tuesday and the men get started Wednesday.
Bow out early at one event or two — or drop a trio of outings consecutively, as she did at the Australian Open, Qatar and Dubai in January and February — and fans or former players will ask the 2023 U.S. Open champion, who just turned 21 last week, whether she's OK.
“I'm like, ‘I just lost a couple of matches! I’m chillin’,’” said Gauff, who has a first-round bye because she is seeded No. 3 at the hard-court Masters 1000 event and will get started by taking on another past Grand Slam champion — Petra Kvitova or Sofia Kenin — in the second round later in the week.
“I'm obviously not happy with those past results, but it's one of those things that, in the history of my career, I've had ups and downs. I still feel like I have a couple more years ... (to reach) that point where every week is a great week, I guess,” said Gauff, who is based not far from where the Miami Open is played. “I'm also in the middle of changes in my game; it's been difficult."
She's spoken frequently about those switches, which began with adjusting her coaching staff after last year's U.S. Open and also included adapting her serve — with a particular eye on shoring up second serves so as to avoid double-fault issues — and her forehand.
It's been clear ever since she burst onto the scene as a 15-year-old qualifier at Wimbledon in 2019, beating seven-time major champion Venus Williams along the way to reaching the fourth round, that Gauff's backhand is nothing if not elite, while her forehand is the shot that opponents tend to go after.
The American's most recent match was a three-set loss to Tokyo Olympics gold medalist Belinda Bencic at Indian Wells, California, in the fourth round last week. Afterward, Bencic spoke about what her thinking was at 4-all in the final set.
“I felt like she was more tense,” Bencic said about Gauff, “so I felt like that was the right time to go for her forehand.”
Gauff called the event held over the next two weeks at the stadium used by the NFL's Miami Dolphins as her “home tournament.”
She's 6-5 in Miami and has not made it beyond the fourth round there.
No matter what others might say to her, or about her, after setbacks, Gauff doesn't like to harp on it too much — even if she expects more from herself, too.
That's what comes with being ranked as highly as she is. And with having won Grand Slam titles in singles and doubles, along with the season-ending WTA Finals last year.
“I will say that it is tough, sometimes, when everyone is (saying), 'Oh, (lost) two matches in a row,’ and things like that,” she said Monday. "Because if I wasn’t a top-five player it wouldn’t, probably, be a conversation. That comes with being at the top. You’re expected to win. And I expect myself to win, as well.”
FILE - Coco Gauff, of the United States, holds up the championship trophy after defeating Aryna Sabalenka, of Belarus, in the women's singles final of the U.S. Open tennis championships, Sept. 9, 2023, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II, file)
FILE - Coco Gauff of the United States returns a shot to Yuliia Starodubtseva of Ukraine during the women's singles quarterfinals match of the China Open tennis tournament, at the National Tennis Center in Beijing, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim, file)
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis said in a letter published Tuesday that his lengthy illness has helped make “more lucid” to him the absurdity of war, as his top deputy shot down any suggestion of resignation and plans progressed for an upcoming meeting with Britain's King Charles III.
Italian daily Corriere della Sera published a letter to the editor from Francis, signed and dated March 14 from Rome's Gemelli hospital where the 88-year-old pontiff has been treated since Feb. 14 for a complex lung infection and double pneumonia.
In it, Francis renewed his call for diplomacy and international organizations to find a “new vitality and credibility.” And he said that his own illness had also helped make some things clearer to him, including the “absurdity of war.”
“Human fragility has the power to make us more lucid about what endures and what passes, what brings life and what kills,” he wrote.
Responding to a letter from the newspaper’s editor-in-chief, Luciano Fontana, Francis also urged him and all those in the media to “feel the full importance of words.”
“They are never just words: they are facts that shape human environments. They can connect or divide, serve the truth or use it for other ends,” he wrote. “We must disarm words, to disarm minds and disarm the Earth.”
The letter was published as Francis registered slight improvements in his treatment and as the Vatican No. 2, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, shot down any suggestion the pope might resign.
“Absolutely no,” Parolin told journalists on Monday when asked if he and the pope had discussed a resignation. Parolin has visited Francis twice during his hospitalization, most recently on March 2, and said he found Francis better than during his first Feb. 25 visit.
Also Tuesday, Francis received a standing ovation from the Italian Senate, after Premier Giorgia Meloni sent her greetings and said “not just this chamber, but all of the Italian people″ wish the pope a full recovery “as soon as possible.”
Meloni, who was the first outsider to visit the pope after he was hospitalized, said that “even in a trying moment, his strength and guidance have been felt.”
Francis is now able to spend some time during the day off high flows of oxygen and use just ordinary supplemental oxygen delivered by a nasal tube, the Holy See press office said. Doctors are also trying to cut back on the amount of time he uses a noninvasive mechanical ventilation mask at night, to force his lungs to work more.
While those amount to “slight improvements,” the Vatican isn’t yet providing any timetable on when he might be released. That said, Buckingham Palace announced Monday that King Charles III was scheduled to meet with Francis on April 8 at the Vatican.
Such state visits are always closely organized with Parolin's office, suggesting that the Holy See believed the pope would be back home by then, barring any setbacks.
The developments came as the Vatican released some details on the first photograph of Francis released since his hospitalization. The image, taken Sunday from behind, showed Francis sitting in his wheelchair in his private chapel in prayer without any sign of nasal tubes.
The photo, showing Francis wearing a Lenten purple stole, followed an audio message the pope recorded March 6 in which he thanked people for their prayers, his voice soft and labored.
Together, they suggested Francis is very much controlling how the public follows his illness to prevent it from turning into a spectacle. While many in the Vatican have held up St. John Paul II’s long and public battle with Parkinson’s disease and other ailments as a humble sign of his willingness to show his frailties, others criticized it as excessive and glorifying sickness.
The image certainly reassured some well-wishers who came to Gemelli to pray for Francis, who is recovering in the 10th-floor papal suite reserved for popes.
“After a month of hospitalization, finally a photo that can assure us that his health conditions are better,” said the Rev. Enrico Antonio, a priest from Pescara.
But Benedetta Flagiello of Naples, who was visiting her sister at Gemelli, wondered if the photo was even real.
“Because if the pope can sit for a moment without a mask, without anything, why didn’t he look out the window on the 10th floor to be seen by everyone?” she asked. “If you remember our old pope (John Paul II), he couldn’t speak up, but he showed up.”
Paolo Santalucia and Silvia Stellacci contributed to this report.
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Faithful pray in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, during a vigil rosary for the recovery of Pope Francis, Monday, March 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
Faithful pray in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, during a vigil rosary for the recovery of Pope Francis, Monday, March 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
FILE - Pope Francis arrives for his weekly general audience in the Paul VI Hall, at the Vatican, Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, File)
Cardinal Dominique Mamberti prays in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, during a vigil rosary for the recovery of Pope Francis, Monday, March 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
This picture released by the Vatican Press Office shows Pope Francis concelebrating a mass inside his private chapel att the Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic in Rome on Sunday, March 16, 2025. (Vatican Press Office, Via AP )
