Coco Gauff wept in her courtside chair, cried on the trophy podium and sobbed again in the press room as the US teenager admitted her French Open final defeat Saturday was a "lot to handle".
Gauff, 18, and the youngest finalist at a major since Maria Sharapova at Wimbledon in 2004, was swept off court by world number one Iga Swiatek 6-1, 6-3 in just 68 minutes.
After a tournament which had seen her celebrate her high school graduation and then win widespread praise for an impassioned plea to end gun violence in the United States, defeat to the Pole was a bitter end. "The tears just come," she said. "I try really hard not to cry on the court, and I knew whether I won or lost.
I feel happy really and sad, I don't know how to handle it. "I hate myself for crying. After the match, my little brother was crying and I felt so bad, because I was trying to just tell him, 'It's just a tennis match'.