Coco Gauff
By ELLA O’HANLON ‘21
Picture how stressed you were as a 15 year old freshman with the newfound workload and tests piling up day after day. Now picture on top of this work, six hours of vigorous training per day and mounds of pressure to be the best tennis player in your age group. This description depicts the life of tennis player Coco Gauff. At the young age of 15, Coco Gauff will leave you in awe at all the accomplishments she’s made in the tennis world, including her being the youngest female third round contestant in the US Open singles’ main draw. At just 12 years old Gauff stated that she aspired to become the greatest tennis player of all time, and despite the ambitiousness of this goal, she seems to be on her way.
Gauff was born in Atlanta in 2004, just 15 years ago, and was homeschooled by her mom alongside her two younger brothers. Both of Gauff’s parents were college athletes—her mom ran track at Florida State, while her dad played basketball at Georgia State—leaving a lot of pressure on her to thrive athletically. Gauff picked up tennis when she was just six years old, and at the age of seven, she moved to Florida in order to be closer to better training opportunities. When Coco was 11 years old, Serena Williams’ coach hand picked her to train with him. In addition to Gauff’s pressure to live up to her parents’ successes, Gauff’s new training with the coach of Serena Williams, objectively one of the best female tennis players of all time, placed a new pressure for Gauff to rise to Serena’s level of play. In the face of all this athletic pressure, Gauff exceeded any expectations placed upon her.
Gauff has made countless extraordinary accomplishments at such a young age. She started her career with smaller competitions, of which she won almost every single one. In 2018, Gauff won the Junior French Open as the second youngest female to ever do so. This year, Gauff competed in the French Open, where she qualified to compete at Wimbledon, the most prestigious of the four grand slam tournaments. Before beating five time champion Venus Williams in the opening round, Gauff, according to Business Insider, grew up idolizing the Williams sisters; after the match ended, Gauff humbly thanked Venus. In this match, Gauff beat an accomplished player who had already won six championships by 2004, the year Gauff was born! Two days after Gauff’s win against Venus Williams, she went on to beat Slovakia’s Magdalena Rybarikova. Sadly, Gauff’s winning streak came to a halt when Romania’s Simona Halep knocked Gauff out of the esteemed Wimbledon tournament. In addition to the fame and glory Gauff receives after every win on the court, she also receives a boatload of money. Before her Wimbledon appearance, Gauff had already won $75,011. She won an additional $139,000 in Wimbledon prizes. This large sum of money doesn’t even include the sum she will make from new sponsors including New Balance, Head, and a few others. According to Newsweek, with all these sums adding up she is predicted to make over $1 million by the end of 2019—all at the young age of 15!
Considering all of the coverage she has been receiving lately, you will surely continue to see more of Gauff as she aspires to reach her ambitious goal of becoming the best tennis player of all time.
Image courtesy of theguardian.com