Coco Gauff

PARIS — It is easy to be in a rush when you reach the fourth round of Wimbledon at age 15, beating one of your idols, Venus Williams, in your opening match.

She and her partner, Jessica Pegula, are into the semifinals of the women’s doubles and will face their American compatriots Taylor Townsend and Madison Keys on Friday. I’m glad she is aware and bringing the attention and empathy to it. The first thing my dad said to me after I got off court: ‘I’m proud of you, and I love what you wrote on the camera.’” “My dad told me I could change the world with my racket,” she said. “She’s always had work to turn in, and it’s always in the back of your mind. But Gauff’s family also made it clear to her from an early age that she could have a reach far beyond the court. He added: “He’s able to communicate to her how it makes him feel on the other side of the net when she does something. “That release when you finish high school or college is real,” he said. “She’s definitely the favorite going into the match on paper,” Gauff said. On Saturday, she will play in her first Grand Slam singles final, facing the No. 1 seed, Iga Swiatek, at the French Open for the title and the Coupe Suzanne Lenglen. PARIS — It is easy to be in a rush when you reach the fourth round of Wimbledon at age 15, beating one of your idols, Venus Williams, in your opening match. That score and breakneck pace have been typical for Swiatek, the powerful and increasingly imposing Polish star.

The American's semifinal win over Martina Trevisan follows two mass shootings in the US in the past 10 days, including one that left 19 children and two ...

"I just think it's crazy. "And I think, going in, I have nothing to lose and she's definitely the favourite going into the match on paper. "That was just a message [I wrote on the camera] for people at home to watch, and for people who are all around the world to watch.

Paris: American teenager Coco Gauff has appealed for an end to gun violence in the United States after she beat Italian Martina Trevisan to reach the French ...

I just think it’s crazy, I think I was maybe 14 or 13 when that happened, and still nothing has changed.” “I remember watching that whole experience like pretty much first-hand, seeing and having friends go through that whole experience. I am not going to stress over a tennis match.”

Coco Gauff has become the youngest grand slam finalist since 2004, then sent a powerful message to her fell...

"I mean, yeah, it's a grand slam final, but there are so many things going on in the world right now, and especially in the U.S. a lot of stuff is happening right now, so I think it's not important to stress over a tennis match." But I want to keep doing the same work." Gauff questioned Veljovic about a couple of line calls, drawing whistles and boos from spectators who frown on that sort of thing. Now she's the youngest player to reach a major title match since Maria Sharapova won Wimbledon at 17 in 2004. "From what I see on court, she's developing every year, basically," said Swiatek, the champion at Roland-Garros in 2020 and on a 34-match winning streak after eliminating No.20 Daria Kasatkina 6-2, 6-1. But ... this has been an issue, at least in my head, for a long time, and I definitely think there needs to be some reform put into place," Gauff said. Because of all manner of surprising results and early exits by top players from the bracket, she has faced only one seeded foe, No.31 Elise Mertens. My parents are going to love me, regardless. So I'm just going to go into it like another match," Gauff said. Now, in Swiatek, comes someone who will present a much tougher test. She won the French Open junior title at 14. "I think now especially, being 18, I've really been trying to educate myself around certain situations, because now I have the right to vote and I want to use that wisely."

The 18-year-old Gauff dispatched Martina Trevisan of Italy in straight sets in a semifinal.

She’s also patient and smart, able to stay in rallies until the opportune moment comes to unleash the booming forehand that is her strength. But as the match wore on, Gauff only elevated her play, minimizing errors and wisely choosing the openings for winners. Although her game is still developing, Gauff boasts a terrific blend of skills that translate well to the tricky surface, where nimble footwork, timing and patience matter more than power. Andre Agassi was the last American man, winning in 1999. Gauff is the youngest French Open finalist since Belgium’s Kim Clijsters, in 2001. And I think that’s going to give her confidence.”

Coco Gauff reaching the French Open final at age 18 is the latest in a string of remarkable teenage feats in her young career.

She is the youngest Grand Slam finalist since Maria Sharapova won 2004 Wimbledon at 17. Gauff, now 17, becomes the youngest player to reach a Grand Slam quarterfinal since Nicole Vaidisova in 2006. Gauff became the youngest junior Grand Slam champion since Hingis in 1994.

That the public has barely raised an eyebrow at Coco Gauff's on-court message about gun violence shows how normalised we are to athletes making political ...

Perhaps the sharper question to ask is not so much about the issue as the principle. It also feeds a comforting groupthink that is quick to set rules about what can and cannot be said. As events in Australia over the past week have illustrated, hierarchies of information have flattened out to such a degree that communities have advanced well ahead of policy-makers on the most important issues. What is more arresting now is if such interventions are becoming so normalised and so acceptable that the market becomes flooded and, as freedom of speech spreads, the impact of such speech is diluted and social causes fall into the consumerist blah, just another part of the ritual. Everyone from an 18-year-old tennis player to a 56-year-old basketball coach is so acclimatised to the free exchange of words thumbed onto their electronic device that to speak freely in public is a natural and possibly unconscious extension of those conversations that have filled their heads. Gauff, a young African American still of school age, had recent personal experience, with friends who had been terrorised by a school shooter in Florida. But the uprising against American gun laws has unified all ages and races.

The youngest American grand slam finalist since Serena Williams is one win away from a breakthrough major championship that's been years in the making.

The first thing my dad said to me after I got off court, I’m proud of you and I love what you wrote on the camera.” On Twitter, former First Lady Michelle Obama congratulated Gauff on making it to the final and said she’d be rooting for her all the way. In tennis, a sport where players are perhaps more likely to publicly eschew the complexities of social consciousness for platitudes on hard work, Gauff is clear on her choice: “I’m a human first.” It’s not the first time Gauff has leveraged her platform in the service of social issues. But for me, it was an eye opener that my parents really just care about the character of my personality and not so much on tennis results.” The kind of work that goes into being a professional tennis player is only recently the stuff of Netflix documentaries; the level of tedium inherent to the endless rotation of practice, and play, and training, and physio, the kind needed to avoid the one-off anomaly of an early-career success simply cannot be avoided.

American teen reaches the final in singles and doubles and hopes to walk away with two trophies this weekend.

It's a final between the world's No. 1, Iga Swiatek, and a rising American star, Coco Gauff -- a best final tennis fans could have hoped for.

Much has been made of the work she and her sports psychologist, Daria Abramowicz, have done off the court, keeping her balanced and putting everything in perspective, but Swiatek's innate ability to find a solution on court when she's in trouble is equally impressive. From the start, she has looked relaxed, determined and absolutely in her element. Much will depend on how much control she can get from the baseline. Instead, she has grasped the mantle of No. 1 and seems to actively embrace it. The champion in 2020 when she was 19, Swiatek is a far better player now. Quite simply, Swiatek is the best female player on the planet right now.

Coco Gauff has been selective with sponsorship opportunities, but a Grand Slam win at age 18 could bring in millions.

Deals with prestigious brands like Rolex and Microsoft made sense after her 2019 breakout, but there is care being taken not to overcommercialize Gauff at this young age or add to the pressure she acknowledged feeling in a 2020 post for Behind The Racquet. Her focus is on tennis, and her newly beefed-up playing schedule, now that she has turned 18 and is no longer subject to WTA restrictions on how many tournaments young players can enter each year. For starters, sponsor deals in tennis typically feature performance incentives on top of the base guarantees, so Gauff could unlock substantial bonuses by winning her first Grand Slam or rising in the rankings. Off the court, Forbes estimates she is making at least $4 million annually (before taxes and agents’ fees) from sponsors that include New Balance apparel, Head tennis rackets and Barilla pasta. The comparisons to Serena Williams started early for Coco Gauff, who won a national tennis tournament at age 8 and became the world’s No. 1 junior player at 14. But Gauff is already raking in cash, with $3.2 million in career prize money since she turned pro in 2018. Gauff, now 18, will play for the French Open women’s singles title in Saturday’s final against top-ranked Iga Swiatek, a phenom herself at just 21.

Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula advanced to the women's doubles final at the French Open by beating Madison Keys and Taylor Townsend 6-4, 7-6 (4) in an ...

Barbora Krejcikova won the singles and doubles titles at the 2021 French Open, the first time a woman claimed both in the same year at Roland Garros since Mary Pierce in 2000. She is the youngest woman to reach both the women's singles and women's doubles finals at the same major since Serena Williams won both at the 1999 US Open at age 17. Gauff and Caty McNally were the runners-up in women's doubles at last year's US Open.