Cori ‘Coco’ Gauff is not your average American teenager. Or is she?
The 19-year-old copes with stress and pressure situations in a match by thinking of Beyonce, and if she spots Justin Bieber in the crowd, it isn’t the day any opponent can get through her.
She’s a waterbender like Katara from the Avatar series, can shapeshift herself according to what her opponent has on offer. Case in point, Aryna Sabalenka, the world number one Gauff overcame to win her first Grand Slam and that too in front of home audience.
New York. The ‘concrete jungle’ where her dreams began almost a decade ago and has shaped up remarkably well.
The newly crowned US Open champion picked up the tennis racquet when she was six. She developed as an aggressive player with a big serve just like her idols, the Williams sisters.
Clarity of thought
However, on Saturday, it wasn’t the aggressive Gauff that won at the Flushing Meadows, but someone who was sure of her defence and has clarity over what needs to be done.
“I was just trying to stay in the match. I knew she (Sabalenka) was going to go out there swinging, and I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to win this match the way I like to play,” Gauff said in the post-match press conference.
“I don’t like to play the way that I played today. Running around the court, it’s fun, but, you know, it’s not as fun as hitting winners,” she added.
This clarity has come through experience, of losing a French Open final (in 2022), of getting knocked out in the first round in Wimbledon, and through many tough defeats she has suffered ever since she began playing professionally in 2018, aged 14.
Also read — An even chance: On the U.S. Open
For her though, things changed when she saw Iga Swiatek lifting the Roland Garros trophy last year. “Honestly, the French Open moment, I watched Iga lift up that trophy, and I watched her the whole time. I said, I’m not going to take my eyes off her, because I want to feel what that felt like for her,” she said.
Even though she hasn’t crossed 20, playing the sport and having the experience has made her mature quite early where she doesn’t let the outside voices get through her.
“I went into this match (final) like it was any other match. I honestly wasn’t nervous going in. She was just playing great tennis, and I knew today was going to be one of those…
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