At the US Open, can Coco Gauff take her prodigal career to the next level? | Tennis News

At Wimbledon 2019, where tennis veterans Serena Williams, Roger Federer, and Novak Djokovic reached the final, the breakthrough of the sport’s latest prodigy also took place.A wide-eyed, mere 15-year-old, Coco Gauff got through qualifying via wildcard to get a Court One assignment against one of her idols, Venus Williams. Gauff’s upbringing, as a young black girl in Florida trying her hand at tennis, meant the Williams sers were natural inspirations. She was born in 2004, the year after Serena and Venus had competed in four consecutive Grand Slam finals. Still a high school junior, but armed with a bullet-like first serve and muscular court coverage, she beat Venus in straight sets, and later reached the fourth round. A new name had arrived.In the four years since, Gauff has not quite been able to live up to the sky-high expectations. Comparisons with the Williams sers have not helped her case either. But as she comes into the US Open, starting Monday, with an 11-1 win-loss record since Wimbledon, a year on from Serena’ emotional retirement, she will struggle to shed both characterisations.

Coco Gauff after becoming the youngest player to win Cincinnati:
“This is unbelievable. . I’d like to thank my lord & savior Jesus Chr. I spent a lot of nights alone crying trying to figure it out. I still have a lot to figure out, but I thank him for covering me.” 🥹 pic.twitter.com/pt8KCdFm3n
— The Tennis Letter (@TheTennisLetter) August 20, 2023
And she is not shying away from the comparisons. “It’s something that I don’t take lightly,” she was quoted as saying AP in her pre-tournament press conference. “Sometimes I guess it increases the pressure because I know that this community of people, the community of people of colour, black people, look up to me a lot. Especially with Serena retiring, people consider me the next leader, or something, of tennis.”

Tennis prodigies are often caught in a Catch 22. Heightened expectations allow them greater billing and opportunities to compete (ask Emma Raducanu), but despite very clearly not yet the finished article, their development takes place entirely in the public eye.
For a teenager, Gauff has an impressive resume. Her second-week debut at a Major took place at an impossibly young age, but since then she has steadily developed her game, turned into one of the strongest, most athletic players on tour, become doubles World No. 1, and had a steady run in the world’s top 10.

Yet, her development has been significantly underplayed because she has not had the privilege of being associated with youth. It is easy to forget just how young Gauff still is. At Cincinnati this month, at 19, she became the first teenager in four years to win multiple titles on the WTA Tour. But when the Williams sers are the model, and the breakthrough took place at 15, success at the Majors become expectation, not hope. And weaknesses are scrutinised more intensely.
Chief among those weaknesses are a perceived mental fragility – one could also call it a lack of maturity – which allows her to give up leads and stops her from coming back from deficits, as well as a wonky, inconsent forehand, given her extreme Western grip.
For all of Gauff’s evident strengths, having a weakness as pronounced as the one she has on her forehand will mean that elite players will target that wing and find a way to get past her. No player has exploited that weakness as much as Iga Swiatek, the World No. 1 and defending champion at Flushing Meadows.
The big win
Gauff reached her maiden Major final at the French Open in 2022 – and is yet to see those heights since – but the match was as ceremonial as it gets, with Swiatek sending each return in her strike zone to Gauff’s weaker forehand, and dominating from the baseline.

COCO GAUFF GETS HER FIRST CAREER WIN OVER NO. 1 IGA SWIATEK 👏
Look at what it means‼️
(via @WTA)pic.twitter.com/NksXMux8M4
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) August 19, 2023
Swiatek has, in many ways, haunted Gauff. She first formed the template, bursting on to the scene in 2020 as a 20-year-old winning the French Open and staying at the summit of the game ever since. She had also dominated the pair’s matches up until this month, winning each of their 7 meetings without dropping a set. That was until they met in the semifinal in Cincinnati this month.
Gauff won in three sets, not only answering questions regarding her forehand, but also showing the mettle many have criticised her for not having. Swiatek was serving for the first set, before Gauff came back, forced a tiebreaker and won it. As Swiatek found her feet in the second set, Gauff elevated her game in the third, using her big backhand to dominate and big serve to win cheap points.
She went on to lift the title in the American Midwest, her first WTA 1000, after winning her first WTA 500 in Washington a few weeks prior. She has drawn Swiatek in the same quarter in New York. As has been the case for every Major over the last 18 months, for all title-contenders, Swiatek is the player to beat. Knowing she will have to go through the World No.1 again, that win, and her form, will give Gauff a renewed kind of confidence.
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Since losing the first round at Wimbledon last month, Gauff has looked like a reformed player. Having begun work with high-profile coach Brad Gilbert, that cannot be a mere coincidence.
Not to say that within a month Gilbert has revolutionised her forehand or net game, but his instantimpact among others he has worked with is unquestionable. A few months after he joined hands with Andre Agassi, the American won his maiden US Open in 1994. Andy Roddick won his one and only Major at the 2003 US Open, after beginning work with Gilbert in June that year.
He will hope his next project with Gauff, in the post-Serena Williams era, under the watchful eye of a raucous American home crowd, achieves similar results.