COCO GAUFF mangled a racquet in a moment of rage following her worst Grand Slam defeat in seven years.
The American, 21, was defeated for the second year running in the quarter-finals of the Australian Open.
The reigning French Open champion was fuming after her shock 59-minute exit to Elina Svitolina as the Ukrainian won 6-1 6-2.
It was a surprising result for the Florida-based ace and then how she behaved backstage was equally out of character for a normally composed individual.
Inside the bowels of the Rod Laver Arena, Gauff was caught on CCTV cameras walking along a corridor on her own, without security or WTA personnel or members of her coaching team.
Gauff, the No.3 seed, expressed her frustrations as she smashed her tennis equipment on the ground SEVEN times before heading to the locker room.
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This represented the fewest number of games won by Gauff in a loss at one of the four majors since she was crushed 6-3 6-0 by Naomi Osaka at the 2019 US Open – and the youngster left the arena that night in tears.
In terms of time on court, it was a shorter match than the 68-minute humiliation he suffered against Iga Swiatek in the 2022 French Open final in Paris.
Tim Henman, the former British tennis star, was shocked by how poorly Gauff played in the last eight but understood why she took out her emotions on her racquet.
Speaking in the TNT Sports studio, Henman said: “We all have bad days at the office.
“But in the context of being the favourite going into that match, she’s a Grand Slam champion, she’s won the French Open, she’s one the US Open, that was a shocking performance.
“There’s no two ways really about it and and Svitolina just took advantage.
“She was just playing so badly and this result hasn’t just sort of come overnight as it were we know she has been struggling.
“There’s so much focus of attention on her – and I think we all sympathise with Coco because she’s such a great competitor.
“She’s such a good player. She had three winners, 26 unforced errors in the match. And it’s impossible to compete really at any level like that.
“So, it was hardly surprising to see her frustration at the end.”
Svitolina, 31, has reached the Aussie Open semi-finals for the first time in 13 attempts.
And she now faces world No.1 Aryna Sabalenka in the semi-finals at Melbourne Park.
But there will not be any handshakes offered to the Belarusian due to the country’s involvement with Russia in the illegal invasion of Ukraine which began four years ago.
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