Coco Gauff has made rapid strides in Tennis already at the age of 17 and the future looks bright for this American teenager.
Follow Us
In Wimbledon 2019, there was a contest between a 15-year-old and a 39-year-old in the first round of the tournament. The match between Venus Williams, a multiple-time Grand Slam winner and Coco Gauff, one of the youngest players to have qualified for the main draw in Wimbledon should have been a straight forward affair with Venus Williams winning the match. However, in a dramatic twist, Gauff upset the predictions and won 6-4,6-4 in straight sets. This made her the most-searched player on the web and her matches were now breaking telecast records in the USA.
July 1, 2019 was the passing of the torch moment for Gauff, who had idolized Venus and Serena Williams when she was growing up. In fact, it was Serena’s victory in the 2009 Australian Open that inspired Gauff, who was just four at that time, to take up the game of Tennis. She made rapid strides in Junior Tennis and was ranked No.1 for a period of time, making her the youngest-ever to achieve this feat.
The Wimbledon success over Venus Williams was just a showcase of many great achievements which Gauff would achieve in the period from 2019 to 2020. Gauff made it to the fourth round of Wimbledon in 2019 before being eliminated by Simona Halep. In the 2019 US Open, she made it to the third round but she was eliminated by eventual champion Naomi Osaka. The fact that she managed to achieve so much at the age of 15 shows her determination, needing champion players like Osaka and Halep to beat her.
In 2020, she matched her previous best performance in a Grand Slam by reaching the fourth round of the 2020 Australian Open. In that, Gauff defeated Venus Williams again and she managed to get her revenge when she defeated Osaka in the third round, making her the youngest player to defeat a top five player since 1991. Yet again, she lost in the fourth round to the eventual champion Sofia Kenin in the fourth round. For the third Grand Slam in her short career, an eventual champion dumped her out.
When she won Wimbledon, Gauff was dubbed the Wonderkid. At the age of 17, she still has many miles to go and her success could be the start of something special as American and World Tennis would be looking to fill up the void left by the Williams sisters in the years to come.
