Coco Gauff reveals ‘winning a slam is the biggest target’ and looks to build on successful season
Coco Gauff believes she is ready to compete at the top and reveals her biggest target is to win a Grand Slam title after enjoying a successful breakthrough season in 2021.
American wonderkid Gauff broke onto the scene in titillating fashion in 2019 when she beat Venus Williams at Wimbledon at just 15 years old.
Last season Gauff continued her impressive breakthrough when she went deep at the French Open, reaching the quarter-finals of the French Open where she lost to World number five Barbora Krejcikova.
The 17 year old is the youngest player ranked within the Women’s Tennis Association top 100 and achieved a career-high ranking of 17th in the world in November.
Gauff has been in action at the Melbourne Summer Set and was relishing the opportunity to compete against two-time Slam winner and current World number one Ashleigh Barty. Although Gauff lost, she took the first set 6-4 before then going on to lose the following two sets 7-5, 6-1.
In an interview with Eurosport, Gauff shared that she feels she is ready to compete against the best. Gauff said “I definitely feel ready. I would say honestly I think I felt ready pretty much after 2019 Wimbledon.
“Going into that tournament obviously it wasn’t something I expected to win well. But I think making second weeks in multiple Grand Slams, I think it shows that I can play at that level.
“Obviously the last two or three matches you [have] really got to bring your game. I think that’s what we worked on, fine-tuning some things so in the quarter-final, semi-final matches, you can get through those.
“The biggest target is winning a Grand Slam. That’s the goal. But for me also just continuing to be a better person and better player on the court,” Gauff outlined.
“I would say handling my emotions a little bit better are something I need to work on, and I worked on… Hopefully when there’s more adversity going on in the matches, I can still keep that straight face, I don’t really know, that poker face in the match.”
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