The season 2019 saw the face of a new tennis protégée from America. Cori Gauff or Coco as she is nicknamed broke in the top 100 at the age of 15, when most players don’t even turn professional. The young starlet showed a combination of mature head and great heart on the tennis court in her 1st season, making her a perfect recipe of a tennis genius.
The Early Strides
At just 15 years of age Gauff has already cracked into the top 100. She started her WTA main tour debut in March 2019 at the Miami Open ranked outside the top 400 players in the world. However an impressive season has made her cover a lot of ground and crack into top 70 of the world by the year end.
She is one of the youngest ever players to make in into the top 100 and seeing her potential it is only expected that the ranking would improve come 2020. Inspired by the great Williams sisters, Coco reminds the tennis fans of a young Serena with her on court aggression and powerful ground strokes.
In India: Politics & Entertainment
Impressive Grand Slam Showing
Gauff could not qualify the main draw at Roland Garros and made her Grand Slam debut at Wimbledon in July this year and it was a dream start. Coco defeated one of her idols and a 5 time Wimbledon champion Venus Williams in her very 1st main draw Grand Slam match. She would go on to reach the 4th round only to fall at the hands of the eventual champion Simona Halep. Coco received admiration for having such a strong game even at the young age of 15.
Gauff also reached the 3rd round in her home at the US Open in 2019. She would be beaten by the then World Number 1 and defending champion Naomi Osaka. It was an enriching experience for a player who has already tasted Grand Slam success at junior level in Roland Garros 2018 and also been a junior World Number 1.
The First Singles Title
Gauff won her 1st singles WTA title in October this year at the Linz Open in Austria. On her way to the trophy she defeated 3 former top 10 players including Kiki Bertens in quarterfinal, Andrea Petkovic in the semis and finally downed the 2017 French Open Champion and former World Number 5 Jeļena Ostapenko in the final.
Coco also won 2 doubles titles in 2019 which came at the Washington Open in August and Luxemburg Open October 2019. With her meteoric rise in 2019 and her great talent at display Coco Gauff will be one of the players to watch in the WTA season 2020.