Martina Hingis and Kim Clijsters on Coco Gauff, the tennis story of the year, and what makes teenager special
Hands clutching her head, blinking back tears as she looked up to her parents jumping up and down in the stands, Cori “Coco” Gauff stood under the glare of the world’s media for the first time on Wimbledon’s No 1 Court.
At 15, she was the youngest qualifier for the tournament in the open era. She had just beaten her “idol” Venus Williams in straight sets, a woman who had already won four grand slams before Gauff was even born. She was about to give tennis its story of the year.
What would follow were two more wins at SW19, including a comeback third round performance given top billing on Centre Court. She ended the tournament bowing out to eventual champion Simona Halep in the last 16, with the crowd shouting “Come on, Coco!” as though they had known her blistering forehand for years, not just in a fortnight.
An equally exciting run to the third round of the US Open came next, before her first WTA title at Linz in October. It crowned her the youngest champion on the tour since 2004 – fittingly the year of her birth – and proved her results at Wimbledon were no fluke. She knew that best. Despite showing humility after scalping one of the all-time greats in Williams, when asked of her ambitions Gauff was unfazed.
“I want to be the greatest,” she said to an overflowing press room. Despite her age, the youngster’s arrival has brought about a renewed sense of nostalgia. “People remember me because of Coco Gauff now,” Martina Hingis, the five-time grand slam champion, says, laughing.
The comparisons stem from the “youngest since” records Gauff has accumulated almost as quickly as Instagram followers (614,000 and counting), including becoming the youngest player to reach the second week of a slam since Hingis in 1996. Hingis achieved the ultimate, in becoming the youngest major winner at the Australian Open the following year aged 16 – another record Gauff has an outside chance of matching. In the 1990s Hingis was not alone or an anomaly as Gauff is. But eligibility rules were tightened in 1994 so prodigies were allowed limited tournaments entries to avoid early burnout, as transpired with Jennifer Capriati and arguably Hingis’s singles career, forced to retire at 22 through chronic injuries.
Even so, Hingis believes talent such as Gauff’s warrants throwing caution to the wind. “If they have the level, let them play as much as they want. Why not?” she says. “[The WTA] have got to find something so [Gauff] can play, everyone is pushing for it now.” Roger Federer, whose company Team8 manages Gauff, echoed Hingis, saying the rule was “counterproductive” in actually putting more pressure on teens as they have fewer opportunities to shine.
But others are more tentative. Four-time grand slam champion Kim Clijsters, who in September announced plans to return to action aged 36, says there is no point steamrollering Gauff’s progress, especially because of her overnight celebrity, which has meant her gracing magazine covers like Teen Vogue.
“Don’t rush it,” says Clijsters. “When [she] got to the US Open, you see with the spotlight and the expectation, the celebrities cheering her on, that changes a person’s life literally from one day to another.”
It is a point Hingis agrees with. “I [won] my first slam and then had another two or three hours of media afterwards,” she recalls. “That was more mentally tiring. I was prepared to play but, at 16, no one can prepare you for that.”
WTA rules stipulate that next season Gauff can play three more tournaments before her 16th birthday in March, when it resets and she will then have 16 entries until her next birthday. She is next in action in Auckland before the Australian Open in January. Keeping a lid on predictions will be a big task. “If she isn’t No 1 in the world by the time she is 20 I would be absolutely shocked,” US tennis legend John McEnroe stated immediately after her first win at Wimbledon. Clijsters dubs her the USA’s great hope: “America has been waiting for another big name.”
Parents Candi and Corey (who coaches Gauff) will likely help keep her grounded, though, and have done a stellar job in raising Gauff (the person, rather than the tennis player) so far. She shows roundedness when dropping the names of her “mostly female” role models, in Michelle Obama, Serena Williams, Beyonce and Greta Thunberg. And then remarkable eloquence – not to mention composure – in high-pressure moments.
While wiping away tears on Arthur Ashe Court after losing comprehensively to reigning champion Naomi Osaka at the US Open, there was disappointment but also grace. “For me, the definition of an athlete is someone who on the court treats you like they’re your worst enemy, but off the court can be your best friend. I think that’s what [Osaka] did tonight,” Gauff said to rousing applause.
She has met hype with measuredness, saying on-court improvements are all she has planned for 2020. But though few had the foresight to expect her meteoric trajectory this year, that Gauff herself envisioned it speaks volumes. In January 2019, aged 14 and ranked 685th in the world, she told her family her year-end goal: reach the WTA top 100. She is now ranked 68th.
Gauff is already a proven serious competitor. The hope is that, at just 15, the innocence in her bright-eyed shock and gleeful celebrations will remain intact as her star invariably soars come 2020.
