We should be careful not to overhype teenage Gauff, warns Becker

I’m sorry Nadal checks on ballgirl hit in head

Boris Becker has warned against hyping up 15-year-old phenomenon Coco Gauff, who plays the defending Australian Open champion Naomi Osaka in the headline match today on Rod Laver Arena.

Becker knows whereof he speaks, having won Wimbledon at 17 and faced overwhelming expectations thereafter. When he eventually lost a match at the All England Club, two years later, he jolted a roomful of shocked journalists back to reality with his most famous quote: “I lost a tennis match. Nobody died.”

This week, Becker has been following Gauff ’s run to the third round in his role as a Eurosport commentator. “It’s very remarkable how mature she is,” he said, “but tennis doesn’t sleep. Naomi Osaka is great. [Bianca] Andreescu is great. I think Coco, tennis-wise, isn’t as good as these players yet.

“We should be careful of overtalking and overhyping a 15-yearold who has won a few matches. “She is an exceptional talent. She will be there in the future. But we have got to give her the time to mature and develop in a natural way, otherwise by 22 she is burned out. There are many examples of young, successful female players that have pushed themselves too hard at an early age and then fizzled out at the end.”

Rafael Nadal apologises to a ballgirl after she was hit by a wayward forehand in his routine second-round win

Jennifer Capriati is the ultimate example of the teen tennis star who became an icon before she had even won anything significant. Capriati found her early fame profoundly destabilising, and although she eventually came good in her mid-20s, she quit the game soon after.

Other examples include Martina Hingis, who retired for the first time at 22, and Andrea Jaeger, who reached two major finals before her 19th birthday in the early 1980s. Jaeger gave up tennis at 20 and eventually became a nun, later admitting that she had gone so far as to tank matches (tennis slang for giving up easily) to avoid becoming world No1.

Gauff, ranked No 67, continues to be one of the most followed players at every tournament she enters, having stunned the tennis world with her breakthrough at Wimbledon last summer. She opened that tournament with a memorable win over Venus Williams, which she duly reprised at Melbourne Park on Monday. “My mission is to be the greatest,” said Gauff afterwards. “That’s my goal.”