Caption: 19-year-old Coco Gauff captures first Grand Slam title at 2023 U.S. Open
By Nancy E. Spencer
Nancy E. Spencer is Professor Emerita in Sport Management, having taught in the SM program for 25 years. After competing and teaching tennis professionally for over 25 years, she went to graduate school at the University of Illinois to become a sport sociologist. Her research focuses on professional women’s tennis.
September 11, 2023 [updated: September 12, 2023]
Five years after playing in her first professional tournament, 19-year-old Coco Gauff had the tournament of a lifetime at the 2023 U.S. Open, where she won her first Grand Slam title. She became the youngest player to win a Grand Slam tournament since Serena Williams did so in 1999. She credited Venus and Serena for inspiring her – showing her that a Black player could reach the top. After winning the match, she reminisced about attending the U.S. Open when she was 8-years old.
How did she go from being that excited dancing little 8-year old girl to a 19-year old Grand Slam winner? Read on.
It was Coco’s father who took her to the U.S. Open when she was 8, and she credited him for being there, coaching her until recently when she added Pere Riba as her coach and Brad Gilbert as a consultant.
In 2017, at age 13, Gauff signed a contract with Team 8 to play professionally. Team 8 was a sport agency founded by Tony Godsick (husband of former U.S. player Mary Joe Fernandez) and his former client Roger Federer. The 20-year-old newcomer Ben Shelton is another player who signed as a client with the agency. Coco had to wait until she was 14 to play in her first event, the $25,000 Osprey tournament near her home in Florida. There she won three qualifying matches to advance to the main draw, where she got her first win as a pro by beating Moldavian Alexandra Perper, 6-2, 6-3.
Caption: Coco Gauff turns pro after winning 2018 Orange Bowl title.
In 2019, I caught my first glimpse of Coco at the U.S. Open, thanks to my Illinois friend and fellow grad student, Jessie Daw who had an extra ticket. The player I most wanted to see was Coco, who had won her first match at Wimbledon against none other than Venus Williams earlier that summer. My favorite photo from the 2019 Open shows Naomi Osaka hugging Coco after beating her 6-3, 6-0 in the third round. While Coco’s lopsided loss left her in tears, Naomi hugged her, told her it was okay to cry, and invited her to join in the post-match interview with Mary Joe Fernandez. That moment has since gone viral.
August 31, 2019 – Coco Gauff and Naomi Osaka speak after their match at the 2019 US Open. (Photo by Garrett Ellwood/USTA)
In Coco’s first year as a pro, her talent and determination suggested that she could become the new face of American women’s tennis.
Fast forward to 2023, when Coco dominated play during the summer. In the intervening years, Gauff had continued to show signs of promise, although some wondered if she would ever realize her full potential. By the 2023 season, she had won three WTA singles titles, had reached the 2022 French Open final to climb to a top 10 ranking, and also reached the world No. 1 ranking in doubles. Some called 2023 the “summer of Coco.” Expectations could not have been higher for her entering the US Open.
Besides her string of victories, Coco brought something else to the 2023 US Open – a new perspective on life that enabled her to deal with the pressure of expectations. On a sign at the entry way to Arthur Ashe Stadium there is a quote that says: ‘Pressure is a privilege;’ it is the title of a book by Billie Jean King.
When Coco was asked about how she dealt with pressure to win the Open, she said she knew life brought a number of different kinds of pressure, adding “There are people struggling to feed their families… People who don’t know where their next meal is going to come from, people who have to pay their bills. That’s real pressure, that’s real hardship, that’s real life.” As a professional tennis player, Coco recognized that she was privileged, that she was paid to do what she loves and has been supported for it. And that is something she no longer takes for granted.
Coco would need her new outlook to persevere through her draw at the U.S. Open. In the first round, she outlasted her German opponent, Laura Siegemund, in a match that Coco later described as “slow!’ Siegemund regularly used the full 25 seconds on the serve clock before serving. Gauff eventually addressed the official in the chair, saying that it wasn’t fair that Siegemund often went beyond 25 seconds without a warning from the umpire. It was the first time that I can remember Coco voicing a complaint to an official during a match. Given the partisan nature of the US Open crowd, fans began cheering Laura’s errors. After the match, Siegemund criticized the crowd for their partisanship.
In her next 6 matches, Gauff would be pushed to 3 sets by Elise Mertens (3rd round), Caroline Wozniacki (4th round) and Aryna Sabalenka (final). She also had to endure a 50-minute delay in her semifinal against Karolina Muchova when 4 protesters wearing shirts that read “End fossil fuels” were escorted out of the stadium. Three protesters left without further incident. It took longer for the fourth person who had glued their bare feet to the concrete, meaning that “NYPD and medical personnel were needed in order to safely remove this individual from the stadium.”
Entering the final, second-seeded Aryna Sabalenka was the clear favorite and was about to become the World No. 1 since Iga Swiatek lost earlier in the tournament. But Coco seemed to have momentum going into the match. In the first set, Sabalenka came out firing on all cylinders, outhitting her young opponent and making few unforced errors. Aryna is arguably the hardest hitter on the women’s tour and brings an intimidating presence to her play. However, Coco later disclosed that she had practiced against an American player, Chris Eubanks, who had advanced to the Wimbledon quarterfinals earlier in the summer. She acknowledged that he helped her to deal with Sabalenka’s pace. But Sabalenka’s power, placements, and consistency were too much for Gauff in the first set, which Sabalenka won 6-2.
After going down 2-0 in the second set, Gauff slowly climbed back into the match. As she began retrieving more of her opponent’s hard-hit placements, Sabalenka started pressing and making more errors. Coco won 6 of the next 7 games to take the second set, 6-3. The match would go to a third and Coco was beginning to feel the momentum with the crowd enthusiastically supporting her.
In the third set, Gauff showed her determination and concentration by pulling out to a 4-0 lead before Sabalenka could get a game. Even then, Coco kept the pressure on to take the set 6-2 and win the match on her first match point. Afterwards Coco laid on the court, in obvious relief and joy, before rising to embrace her opponent at the net, and celebrating her hard-fought victory with her parents, coaches and fans.
When Billie Jean King presented her with the trophy for winning the 2023 US Open Women’s Singles championship and the $3 million first prize, Coco was quick to credit King for her efforts to bring equal pay to women at the 1973 US Open.
As the adage from the seventies goes, it seems we “have come a long way, baby!”
*Notes: Thanks to commenters Jessie Daw who pointed out that the shot clock allows 25 seconds instead of 30 seconds, and to Jessie, Sharyl Ginther, and Montana Miller for noting that one protester had glued their feet instead of their shoes to the concrete.
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