At the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California, perhaps the most prestigious non-major tournament on the World Tennis Tour, players warm up on a patch of grass outside the stadium. Some throw medicine balls at their coaches, while others stretch with rubber bands. Some pedal lightly on upright bikes. A player throws a frisbee.
Then Coco Gauff enters the court.
Gauff, who in September became the first U. S. teenager to win the U. S. Open in nearly a quarter-century, grabs a soccer ball, sends a guy across the court and deploys a tight 40-yard spiral, straight into the receiver’s chest. She does it again. And again.
The Gauff barrel is flexible. I see you’re hitting a soccer ball with your foot and I’m throwing a Patrick Mahouses bomb at you. Gauff, who grew up in the home of South Florida soccer, takes great pride in showing off her athleticism. “It’s not for girls,” Gauff told TIME in early March, about a week before her 20th birthday. “I don’t think they care too much, especially the Europeans. They don’t know much about football. His pitches are designed to annoy men. “”I’d like to show, especially Americans, that I can probably go as far as they can, if not further,” Gauff says. “I love getting inside Americans’ heads. “
Read more: Coco Gauff continues this championship summit
For her coach, former NHL player and current ESPN commentator Brad Gilbert, Gauff’s active arm is a testament to her untapped potential. “When you see that, it’s almost like, ‘serve better,'” he says.
That’s a claim, given Gauff’s 125 mph speed. Aryna Sabalenka’s serve at this year’s Australian Open was the fastest women’s serve of the tournament. The fact that her game barely scratches the surface of her greatness is a testament to Gauff’s prestige as America’s best. next iconic athlete and possible mononym. From Tiger to Serena to LeBron and. . . Coconut?
Fans have forged an exclusive bond with Gauff, based on her accomplishments at a young age and her willingness to speak out about socio-political issues. She struggled to live up to the initial expectations on the court, fighting back against the pressures she had placed on herself. for years, but he nonetheless calmed his brain a bit last summer, thrilling the crowd in New York when he notched his first Grand Slam victory at the US Open. Throughout the tournament, Gauff captivated her growing fan base. right of climate protesters to disrupt their semi-final match. He reflected on his infatuation with anime, and in his victory speech, he spontaneously thanked his online critics for “adding more fuel to the fire. “
When Naomi Osaka withdrew from the 2021 French Open to take care of her intellectual health, Gauff was the first tennis player to send her a message of support. Late last year, when 18-time primary champion Chris Evert revealed that his ovarian cancer had returned, Gauff was one of the few active players to come close to her. “When other people see an athlete with her point of fame and fortune, showing humility and empathy for the people around her and being aware of global events, it sends a clear message. “Evert told TIME, “She’s focused. He’s not afraid. We want leaders in women’s football. In fact, it will be one of them. If it’s not this one. “
Gauff earned around $23 million in earnings and endorsements in 2023, making her the highest-paid female athlete in the world, according to Sportico, a sports and business publication. He has a memorable spring and summer: the French Open on May 26. , then Wimbledon, then the Olympics and then the defense of his name at the U. S. Open starting in August. “I knew I wanted to try to win multiple Grand Slams,” Gauff says as an SUV drives down I-10, heading from Indian Wells to Los Angeles for TIME’s Women of the Year Gala. “Sometimes other people lose motivation after winning one. It wasn’t a private challenge for me.
Gauff arrives earlier than expected. She won a primary as a teenager, beat Venus Williams in the first round of Wimbledon at age 15 and began walking at nine months, skipping the tracking stage. When she was 3 years old, she was kicked out of her stroller and tried to catch up to her older cousins who were running down a track. I was too small to reach them. But she, too, refused to get tired. His mother Candi, a former star of track and field and boxing in the state of Florida, may simply detect athletic excellence. “It was the first concept like, ‘This is not normal,'” Candi says.
Before Coco was 6 years old, she and her father Corey watched Serena Williams win the Australian Open. Corey, a former basketball player at the school, nicknamed Williams the GOAT. “What is a GOAT?” asked Coco. La greatest of all time, he replied. “I need to be a GOAT,” she said. He bought her a pink Wilson racquet and she spent hours pounding in his garage in Atlanta. The example of the Williams sisters motivated her. ” “I don’t think I have any idea I could do it without them,” Gauff said.
Read more: One hundred hour Next: Coco Gauff, via Billie Jean King
When Gauff was 8 years old, the family moved to Delray Beach, Florida, where Candi and Corey grew up, to be closer to a professional tennis academy. She would be homeschooled, which would give her more time to work on her game. She spent a few weeks a year in France, at the academy run by Patrick Mouratoglou, Serena Williams’ coach from 2012 to 2022. At the age of 10, he told Mouratoglou that he was looking to win more Grand Slams than anyone else. She was tremendously ambitious,” he says. She was looking me in the eye and she was sure of what she was saying. “
Life on the road can simply be isolating for a teenage girl. Gauff missed going to school and hanging out with her friends. When she was 12 years old, at a tournament in France, she says, an organization of Croatian children threw orange peels at her and called her. “I felt like it was anything other people were experiencing, which is not a smart thing to do. They probably didn’t. I grew up with other people who looked different. I don’t get mad about it, that doesn’t explain me.
In December 2018, at age 14, Gauff became the youngest player in 15 years to win the prestigious Orange Bowl U-18 Individual Championship. A few months later, however, he defeated her 6-1, 6-1 in a qualifying round of a low-level professional tournament in Bonita Springs, Florida. He complained about the screening report. ” I would make all kinds of excuses,” says Candi, who gave her daughter the option to leave and enroll in one of the best brick-and-mortar schools if she didn’t need to at least try.
Just two months later, Gauff received social media thanks from Michelle Obama, Snoop Dogg and Magic Johnson for becoming the youngest woman to triumph in the fourth round of Wimbledon in nearly three decades. In August of that year, Obama met with Gauff. circle of family members at their workplace in Washington, D. C. , for about an hour. His most sensible piece of advice: When you’re overwhelmed by the demands of fame, you can say no.
That fall, Gauff attended a prom in Boca Raton, Florida, to get a glimpse of teenage life in general. She and her most productive friend danced together for about 15 minutes and then spent most of the night sitting in the bleachers, waiting “I think I’m at a different point in adulthood than the kids around me,” Gauff says. “No one has yet discovered his life at the age of 15. But I, for the most part, did. “
In June 2020, following the global shutdown of sports and the murder of George Floyd, Gauff made an impression to a crowd in Delray Beach. “If you decide silence,” he says, “you decide the aspect of the oppressor. Gauff’s parents weren’t sure that at such a young age she would have to worry about the debatable factor of police brutality. But the previous speaker at the protest, Gauff’s grandmother, Yvonne Lee Odom, the first black student to attend a top all-white school in Delray Beach, and ending segregation in the area’s public schools, served as inspiration. “If she can do it with that grace, I can do my part,” Gauff says now.
When tennis resumed that same summer, Gauff lost in the first round of the U. S. Open and in the second round of the French Open. “I’m trying to live up to what other people wanted for me,” he says. The pundits began to hit her forehand as unhealthy. “It popped into my head,” he says. He reached his first primary championship final in 2022, at Roland-Garros, where he faced No. 1 World Iga Swiatek. ” I had a lot of anxiety attacks before that final,” Gauff said. “It’s like life and death. It’s hard to breathe. After wasting the first set, she went to the bathroom and cried. “I missed that attack before I got on the court,” he says.
Last year, another early exit (at Wimbledon, on the first circular) nearly put Gauff in a spiral. The day after the defeat, he refused to leave his room. Her parents invited her to a dinner party and a show. , ordered Uber Eats, and watched Judge Judy. ” I was in a dark place,” Gauff says. I put too much of my identity into tennis. It was hard to feel bad all the time.
He made a conscious effort to adjust his thinking. “It’s much less difficult to play for yourself than for others,” Gauff says. “I learned that it was to please everyone. ” He also made other key changes, such as teaming up with Gilbert, who coached Andre Agassi to six primary championships and an Olympic gold medal, and having Corey sit elsewhere to watch his games. “My dad doesn’t give the most productive reactions in the box,” Gauff said. “She’s a very emotional person. ” She mimics his familiar “frustrated dad in the stands” histrionics: waving her arms, stomping her feet. “Sometimes when I lose a point, the first thing I look at is the box,” Gauff explains. “And there’s something more reassuring about seeing someone applaud. ” Corey didn’t sit in her box at the Washington, D. C. , tournaments. and Cincinnati, and Gauff won both events. She watched US Open matches in a suite or, in the case of the final, on a television in an empty gym at Arthur Ashe Stadium, where he can simply scream, pout and pray to his heart’s content.
Gauff lost the first set, as she had in Paris the year before. He retreated back to the bathroom. But this time she didn’t shed tears. She looked in the mirror, poured water on her face, and was filled with tears. trust. ” I feel like I won the game before I even stepped on the court,” he said.
Freed from suffocating expectations, Gauff turns her Southern California attention to her favorite off-court pastime: making the middle-aged men in her life laugh. On the way back to Indian Wells after the Women of the Year event, Gauff bursts out laughing as she watches her father squirm in his seat. While he complains about her comfort level, she is completely cheerful. Before another morning workout, his verbal exchange with Gilbert, a boy who likes to calculate the percentage of his step count, his weightlifting routine, and The Story with Agassi, turns to Magic Mike’s movies. “Brad, do you know how to undress?” she asks. Gilbert, 62, doesn’t seem to know how to react. “You didn’t say no. ” Later, Gilbert simulates a volley of the ball and a movement of his feet towards the service line, as if Gauff had to copy him. “But a little faster than that, right?”Gauff said. ” Is this how you pass backwards? It looks like you’re passing by to park the car. It’s a technique. The Hunchback.
When she makes a mistake, Gauff looks to her father instead of Gilbert. She feels more comfortable expressing herself with him. “Sometimes he has to take a lot of bullets,” he would later say. Says “I’m sorry”: 3 times in the first 8 minutes of a session. He apologizes for serving the long ball on the abdomen of his component, which he is hitting, whether wide or short. “It’s a short component to be perfect,” Gilbert says. The only thing you have to regret is if you didn’t give 100%. You give 100%, rarely does the result suck.
“That’s all I’m going to try to change,” Gauff says. “But I don’t do that in the game. That’s the vital part. “
His expression becomes severe when he leaves the court to rest a mediocre educational block with the Russian Daria Kasatkina. Their framework language says it all: stay away. But toward the end of practice, she chased down the most unlikely balls and returned them, showcasing what her doubles partner, American Jessica Pegula, world No. 5, calls Gauff’s “superpower”: her incredible coverage on the court. At one point, Kasatkina launched a shot over the net that Gauff, for a moment, missed in the sun. “I don’t see anything,” he said. But she sees it and crushes a winner, delighting many viewers.
As Gauff makes her way to the players’ room, enthusiasts line up in front of a railing to ask for autographs and selfies. An older man asks her to give him a sign with her arm: “It’s for my wife!”he says. A quartet of women comb their hair for their Instagrammable moment with the reigning US Open champion. “Don’t push, please,” a security guard yells at the competitive adults. “We have little here. “
Gauff is more comfortable interacting with children. I still feel very young,” she says. Look at SpongeBob SquarePants. She dressed up as Aisha, “the wave fairy” from the Winx Club animated series, for Halloween. He says he tried to incorporate the breathing strategies of Tanjiro Kamado, the protagonist of the anime series Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, into his tennis. Tanjiro’s breathing techniques grant him supernatural powers. “I’m not here to kill demons,” Gauff says. But it helps in times of pressure. “
Gauff is an avid reader. She packed Fourth Wing, a fantasy novel by Rebecca Yarros that went hugely viral on TikTok, into her purse in Indian Wells. It also helps to keep up with the news as productively as possible. He opposes, for example, e-book bans enacted in his home state of Florida and elsewhere. Gauff is specifically opposed to a young adult novel she loves, The Hate U Give, appearing on the forbidden lists: the story explores racial identity and police violence. Message to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who supported the measures that led to increased restrictions: “Leave e-books alone. “
He feels a sense of helplessness in the face of the strength of the Israeli army in Gaza. “I don’t really think there’s mass violence perpetrated against innocent people at either end of the spectrum,” Gauff says. “And there’s one aspect that is that you get killed at a much faster rate than the other. He needs Hamas to release all Israeli hostages and he needs a ceasefire, but he fears that neither side will pay attention to the other. “I feel like it’s getting worse and worse, if you don’t do what’s happening in Gaza, you feel anti-Semitic,” he said. “I feel a long way from that. “
Gauff makes no apologies for expressing her views on one of the most sensitive issues of our time. “I’m someone who cares about anything I feel informed about,” he says. “And I feel pretty knowledgeable about that. “
After reaching the semifinals in Indian Wells, the most successful run of her career, Gauff returns to Delray Beach in mid-March for a ceremony marking the renovation of the tennis courts at Pompey Park, a public facility where she trained with her father as a child. . . After Gauff won the U. S. Open, the U. S. Tennis Association pledged to spend an amount equal to its tournament winnings — $3 million — to repave courts across the country, starting here. Before Gauff hits balls with kids from the Delray Beach Youth Tennis Foundation, all dressed in her iconic New Balance shoe (the coordinates of Pompey Park are inscribed on her left toe), about 20 members of her extended circle of family members gather around her to take photographs. They’re all in front of the camera,” says Gauff, one of the youngest members of the group, but indisputably in charge.
Gauff is moving into a new phase of her life. “At first I was afraid to grow up,” she says. But now I’m embracing adulthood and femininity. ” She still lives with her parents. Her mother washes her clothes. But Gauff hopes to move out and find her own position to live. ” I don’t have a timeline for that,” she admits. I say he’s going to take a stand someday when he’s 20. “While she also manages the extracurricular lives of Gauff’s siblings, 16-year-old Codey, an up-and-coming baseball hopeful, and 10-year-old Cameron, a multi-sport athlete, Candi insists that she or Corey will continue to travel with Gauff to tournaments until, in Candi’s words, “she’s a real adult. “
“It has a lot to do with the age difference,” Candi says, noting that Coco is still 10 years younger than many players on tour. “It’s a lonely world. “
Gauff has had a boyfriend for about a year, whose identity she prefers to keep private. She claims that he is from Atlanta and that he is not famous. “It’s my first genuine relationship,” Gauff says. Just having someone to communicate with who rarely cares much about tennis gives me a new perspective. “Candi was her fourth-grade teacher. My mother used to say that if they were bad in school, they would probably be bad when “We’re adults,” Candi says. “He was a smart, kind kid. “
Meanwhile, Gauff, who has recently ranked third in women’s singles, continues to aspire to the prestige of the world’s top producer. “I get goosebumps representing my country,” Gauff says of her upcoming Olympic debut in Paris. “I need it badly to win a gold medal. ” She looks back on her formative years and claims she won the biggest Grand Slam tournament in history. “I’m only 10 years old and I’m delusional,” he says. Serena made it look too easy. “According to her, double-digit Grand Slam wins seem to be a more realistic goal.
Sitting under an awning in Pompey Park, sheltered from the afternoon sun, Gauff gazes out at the gleaming new tennis courts. “My goal is to be relaxed, laugh and play with less pressure,” she says. “I know other people are starting to talk about protecting the name of the US Open at the end of the year. That doesn’t worry me. She still can’t help but hear noises, such as when she missed her expectations at two hard-court events in the Middle East in February, but her skeptics continue to push her. “All the hate comes,” he said. People were like, ‘Oh, she’s exhausted, it’s this, it’s that. ‘””I’m like, ‘Oh my God. ‘” In her short time on this planet, Gauff learned more about attitude than anyone else. “If I could win one and both games, I would,” he said. . ” But I can’t. People don’t go to the pictures and have a smart day both one and one and both days. We just have to give grace to others. —With reporting by Leslie Dickstein and Julia Zorthian
Scenography through Henry King; styling through Gem Brookes; hair and make-up through Shella Martin; production through B