Coco Gauff broke out as a teenager, and she felt the pressure of that because she thought she needed to win a Grand Slam while still a teenager.
Coco Gauff essentially broke out as a 15-year-old kid at Wimbledon by beating Venus Williams of all people at the event. Oddly enough, even back then, it felt like a passing of the torch kind of moment, and here we are a few years later with Gauff way ahead of Williams in the WTA Rankings.
She’d beat her once more at the event and establish herself as a pretty good player among the elite. She wasn’t at the top but slowly worked her way there over the next two years. And it wasn’t enough.
It felt like a failure because so many people expected Gauff to take over the sport essentially. She didn’t, and it was a tough pill to swallow for many, including herself.
She admitted to stuff.co.nz, ahead of her return to the ASB Classic in Auckland, that she felt like she needed to win a Grand Slam as a teenager to meet the expectations set early in her career.
The way I came up, I felt like I had a clock and I needed to win as a teenager. Just for how I started, with Wimbledon and everything (getting to the third round as a 15-year-old), I felt like I just needed to.
Ultimately, she would get it done by beating Aryna Sabalenka at the 2023 US Open, and it was a huge relief for her. Not just because she finally won the big one but also because of that external pressure, which was tremendous leading up to the final.
Not with anyone’s expectations from my team, but fans and people who watch the game. So I felt like doing that was a bit of pressure relieved by winning as a teenager. But considering my own career, yes and no, because I’m always going to put pressure on myself.
I want to strive for more and I don’t want to only win one. That feeling I felt on match point was a high and I want to continue to chase that high.
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