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Photo credit: Getty Images/TPN
Writer: Madison Hayden
If you haven’t heard yet, Cori “Coco” Gauff is a fifteen-year-old tennis player rising to fame. Not only is she the youngest player ranked in the top 100 by the Women's Tennis Association, she also defeated defending champion Naomi Osaka 6-3, 6-4 at the Australian Open.
On Friday, January 24th Gauff easily plowed past No. 3-seeded Naomi Osaka on the very court where Osaka won the title last year. Fans expected a long and difficult battle, but Osaka admitted the seven year age gap between her and Gauff threw her game off, saying “I have an age problem. I don’t like losing to people who are younger than me, and there are hardly any people younger than me. I took this very personally.”
Photo Credit: New York Times
While many consider her defeat of Naomi Osaka her biggest accomplishment, Gauff has made many other headlines. A year ago, she was ranked No. 684, and now she’s No. 66 in the world. She became the second youngest American to play in the competition behind Jennifer Capriati, who made her debut at 14 in 1990. She also defeated one of her idols, Venus Williams, at Wimbledon this year. She is set to join Serena Williams as part of the U.S. team that will face Latvia in a Fed Cup qualifier during February. The team will also include Sofia Kenin, Alison Riske and Bethanie Mattek-Sands. Gauff also beat 2017 French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko 6-3, 1-6, 6-2 in the final of the Upper Austria Ladies tournament, making her the youngest winner of a singles trophy on the WTA tour since 2004.
Gauff was born in Atlanta, Georgia, but her family moved to Delray Beach so she could focus exclusively on her tennis training. Dedication to athletics is nothing new in the Gauff family-- her dad, Corey, was a basketball player at Georgia State, and her mom, Candi, was a hurdler and heptathlete at Florida State.
Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/24/sports/tennis/coco-gauff-osaka-australian-open.html
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