19-year-old Coco Gauff made history after she secured her first Grand Slam championship on Saturday.
According to People she is the youngest American to win the tournament since Serena Williams in 1999 — was the result of a hard-fought match against Belarus’ Aryna Sabalenka.
After losing the first set 3-6, Gauff rallied back to take the second set 6-3, and finished out the match with a dominant 6-2 final set.
what Coco did the night before her match to calm her nerves
She shared that in 2022, at the French Open, she experienced a disappointing defeat. She believes that her excessive pre-match visualization of hoisting the trophy the night before may have been a distraction, hindering her from securing victory.
This time around, she wanted to do something different.
“Honestly, I didn’t have any of those visions [of winning] till last night,” she told reporters after her win. “You know, I thought about it, but I told myself to get it out of my head, because that’s what I did at French. I was envisioning, you know, what would happen if I would win. I think I wanted it too much.”
“Last night, I started a little bit, but honestly, I just called my boyfriend, and I told him let’s talk until it’s time to go to sleep so we spoke until 1:00 a.m. and then I went to sleep.”
“When I lost the first set I still felt I was into the match and I said, you know, I’m going to give it my all. You know, whatever happens happens,” she said. “Even on that match point, you know, 40-Love, like, technically the match was on my racquet. It didn’t feel like I had won. It was crazy. I was just trying my best to just focus on the point ahead of me.”
Gauff later reflected on the difference between who she is as a player now, compared to the one who lost at in the French Open final.
Asked if she feels a sense of relief after winning at the US Open, Gauff said that feeling is there, but not as much as it would have been a year earlier.
“It’s not the biggest emotion. I think it’s honestly the smallest one, and I think that was what the difference was between French Open and now. If I would have maybe won that title — obviously I didn’t — it would have been the biggest emotion, more than happiness, more than excitement,” she said.
“Right now I’m just feeling happiness and a very, very small bit of relief. Because honestly at this point I was doing it for myself and not for other people.”
A full circle moment
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Congrats girl!
