Coco Gauff, the teenager who has the talent and mindset to be the heir to the Williams sisters

She is just a teenager; she if she is also the youngest tennis player positioned in the top hundred of the WTA rankings. But Cori “Coco” Gauff is already called be the successor of the Williams sisters. On her way to becoming one of the figures of the circuit, the American who turned 18 in March will face the intractable Pole Iga Swiatek, world number 1 and reigning champion, who added her 34th consecutive victory, in the Roland final. Garros. the second best streak of the 20th century, tied with Serena in 2013.

Gauff reached his first Grand Slam final after defeating Italy’s Martina Trevisan 6-3, 6-1 in an hour and 18 minutes, is the current number 23 in the world and entry into the top 20 is already guaranteed, although he can be in 10 if he raises the trophy next Saturday against the world number 1, who defeated Gauff in the two previous duels, this year in Miami and last year in the semifinal in Rome, without having given up a set.

Still, those rolls didn’t scare Gauff, who felt the impact of his resounding semi-final win. “Right now I feel a bit shocked. I didn’t know how to react after the game. I’m speechless,” he said in the City of light before his first Grand Slam final and his being the youngest finalist in Paris since 2001when Kim Clijsters was second at 18, and a Grand Slam since Russia’s Maria Sharapova beat Serena Williams at Wimbledon in 2004 when she was 17.

The young American had already achieved good results in the ‘big’, like when she reached the quarter-finals last year in Paris or when she reached the round of 16 at Wimbledon in 2019 … at 15! Just at that age but a few months later – at the Australian Open 2020 -, the young tennis wonder eliminated her idol Venus Williams in the first round.

Born on March 13, 2004, the same year Venus managed to win her second Wimbledon, and originally from Delray Beach, where her family owned the Paradise Sports Lounge restaurant until it closed due to the pandemic in late 2020, Coco comes from an athletic family. Dad Corey played basketball and Mom Candy was an athlete at Florida State University.

Already at the age of 13, she was the youngest finalist in the US Open junior tournament.. And in 2018, with 14, she was Roland Garros champion among minors.

Always, of course, with the Williams sisters as mirrors in which to reflect. “These are the reasons why I wanted to get a racket“He said long ago, when his arrival in the foreground was still a promise, the ones he already occupies.

The pressure that almost took her away from tennis

When she broke into the women’s circuit, with her daring play and winning mentality, Coco Gauff was quickly spotted and suffered the consequences. In 2020, the American acknowledged that she was not prepared to withstand so much pressure and that she too she was thinking of giving up tennis for a year to focus on living a normal life, like that of any girl her age.

“Throughout my life I have always been the youngest to get things, which gave me a hype I didn’t want,” wrote the 16-year-old American tennis player in a post for Behind The Racquet, the tennis player-sponsored platform. Noah Rubin, where players often open up and talk about the difficulties they face beyond the game.

Gauff acknowledged feeling friendless and considered taking a year off to focus on life. “Choosing not to was obviously the right choice, but I was close to not going in that direction,” he said.

“I was just lost. I was confused and thought too much about whether that was what I wanted or what others were doing. It took me many moments to sit down, think and cry. I came out stronger and got to know myself better than ever. “

And it didn’t stop there. Gauff confessed that depression almost forced her to give up the business: “Just before Wimbledon, returning to the 2017-18 season, I was struggling to figure out if that was really what I wanted. That year she didn’t enjoy what she loved so much; It has been the hardest year for me so far. “

the reference

In less than two years, Coco no longer talks about depression but enters the great conflicts that afflict society. At the end of his last match in Paris before the final, he took the fibron and wrote on TV: “Peace. End gun violence.

What was he talking about? The possession of weapons in the United States and the shootings, one of which hit her directly. “I had some friends involved in the Parkland shooting[il massacro della Miami Stoneman Douglas High School nel 2018]. I remember having that experience almost firsthand. I think it was all crazy, I was 14 or 13 when it happened, and nothing has changed. People around me are aware that if I want to say something, I will say it. But I think a lot about what I will say and how I will say it. Ever since I was younger, My dad told me I could change the world with my racket, and he wasn’t just referring to that as a tennis player, but to topics like this. “

“I’m in a Grand Slam final, but there are so many things happening in the world right now, especially in the US, that I’m not going to stress myself out over a tennis match,” concluded the two-time title holder. his career, the first in Linz in 2019 and the following two years later in Parma, and which will go to France for the first time in 2022.

In Linz, at the age of 15 years and 7 months, she became the ninth youngest player to win a title in the Open era, after Tracy Austin, Cathie Rinaldi, Jennifer Capriati, Andrea Jaeger, Mirjana Lucic, Nicole Vaidisova, Monica Seles and Gabriela Sabatini. Big names, like Coco’s. Roger Federer already knows this, who has known Cori’s path for some time because it is one of the great promises of his representative company: Team8.