The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
At home, Gauff just typical teen
Prodigy with Atlanta roots still on Cloud 9 after stunning Venus Williams at Wimbledon.
Cori
DELRAY BEACH, FLA. — “Coco” Gauff didn’t know she was headed for Wimbledon that Sunday night in June. But she knew the giant, stuffed cookies posted by The Fat and Weird Cookie Co. on Instagram would be sold out if she didn’t order them immediately.
She didn’t realize that “Black Beauty,” “Big Sexy” and “The Brad” would arrive to her empty house in South Florida when she would be playing in front of packed stadiums at the oldest of the major tennis tournaments.
“So I had to have my grandma go and put it in the freezer,” Gauff said recently at the Paradise Sports Lounge, her father’s restaurant in Delray Beach.
Gauff wouldn’t have time to bite into their chocolatey centers until weeks later. The 15-year-old qualified for Wimbledon and defeated Venus Williams in a match that was streamed to more U.S. households than any other that day. The Women’s Tennis Association now ranks the Atlanta junior tennis phenom No. 141 in the world.
The trip was so last-minute that the family didn’t have much time for sightseeing, Gauff said. In between matches, the teen mostly watched “All-American,” a Netflix series about a high school football team, and saw the highlights of London. Big Ben. Parliament. But not the London Eye, the 443-foot Ferris wheel that overlooks the city. “I’m not afraid of heights, but that one, that’s pretty high,” she said.
Scarier than facing Venus Williams in the tournament’s opening round? She laughed like a kid: “Nah.” Then she turned serious about her July 1 upset of the tennis icon.
“My goal was always to play her, but I didn’t expect it to happen so soon,” Gauff said. “Definitely the timeline sped up, I guess.”
So Gauff blasted Kendrick Lamar’s “Humble” through her headphones and prepared for the match against a champion who has won Wimbledon five times and, along with her sister, Serena, has dominated the sport since the 1990s.
“I never dreamed about winning that match,” she said. “Because I was so stuck on the fact of them knowing me. That was crazy.”
Most of all, Gauff remembers the roar of the crowd after the match, which she won 6-3, 6-3. “The crowd made everything a lot more emotional, just in hearing them scream. And they were all on their feet,” she said.
“I said, ‘Thank you for everything, thank you for everything,’” Gauff said. “‘Six-year-old me would not believe this is happening right now.’ ”
Her parents, Candi and Corey Gauff, wrapped her in a hug the moment she walked off the court. Just like they always do.
And when Coco walked through the gates at Palm Beach International Airport in the late hours of July 12, she didn’t expect to find reporters and TV news crews waiting for her, made evident by her sweatshirt and sweatpants. “I didn’t think people would care. I mean, I’ve been to the airport so many times,” she said. “This was the first time cameras were actually there.”
Also proud of Gauff and eager to greet her when she got home were her little brothers, Codey and Cameron, who had remained stateside.
“Codey fell, because he got so excited, and he pushed Cameron out of the way,” their big sister recalled. “I was like, ‘Codey, you can’t be so rough. I’m right here.’”
Moved from Atlanta to Florida at age 7
Gauff has lived in Delray Beach, her family’s hometown, since she was 7. The family moved down from Atlanta to make sure the Serena Williams-obsessed girl could competitively train. Seeing so much more of each other drew the family closer. Gauff said her grandparents would pick her and her brothers up from practices and supported them at games.
Gauff isn’t quite sure when she gravitated toward tennis. She recalls seeing a photo of herself hitting a ball against the garage when she was little. She thinks her father bought her a racket after one of Serena’s seven Wimbledon singles titles.
And her father, who played college basketball at Georgia State, wasn’t sure how to train a tennis champion.
“He didn’t think that I would pick tennis ’cause at the time it was such an uncommon sport,” she said. “When I chose it, he had to do a lot of studying to figure out the right coaches.”
Gauff says her best memories are playing tennis with her dad in the basement, using the couches as a net. She wanted to play, wherever and however: “I feel like even when I was younger, I still had that drive.”
Two weeks ago she was back practicing on the Pompey Park courts like any other summer day, preparing to play in the Citi Open in Washington, which started last week, and the U.S. Open in New York later this month. (At the Citi Open, Gauff won in qualifying matches before losing her first-round match, 6-4, 6-2 to Zarina Diyas on Tuesday. On Saturday, Gauff and fellow teen Caty McNally were scheduled to play in the women’s doubles final against Americans Maria Sanchez and Fanny Stollar.)
This time, at the Pompey Park courts, there weren’t crowds to greet her. It’s the neighborhood where her dad grew up. It’s the park where she played basketball, and where she often comes to watch 11-year-old Codey’s Little League games on the baseball diamonds.
“It’s quiet and normal,” she said. “That’s what I like.”
Pompey’s familiar hard courts have felt a bit more special since she’s been back from London. She can’t even remember the first time she hit a swift forehand over the net. Maybe when she was 6. Or 7.
“At the time you just never thought ... or even this time last year, I wouldn’t think I’d be playing Wimbledon.”
Aiming for the stars
Gauff isn’t focused on what she’s missing when she’s on the court day after day.
Missing things is normal, she said. She’s been homeschooled for years. She travels more weekends in a year than many jet-setting adults do. She missed her cousin’s wedding.
The sacrifices will only become greater. But Gauff wants the reward they may bring. “My goal is to be the greatest,” she said. “I want to be better than Serena.”
She’s getting a taste of Serena’s fame, and in a way only a 15-year-old could appreciate: becoming “Insta-famous.” The Wimbledon run brought Gauff almost 400,000 followers on the social-media platform. She’s also received shout-outs from her icons, Michelle Obama and Serena herself. But the 15-year-old still has social-media dreams to satisfy — namely, a follow from a certain fashionable singer.
“Dream follow? Rihanna would be pretty cool,” she said. “I would say Beyoncé, but she follows zero people, so that wouldn’t be possible. She doesn’t even follow JayZ,” as in her husband.
Instead she’ll have to settle for Jaden Smith. The rapper followed her on Twitter, which was pretty cool, she said. Especially since she used to have a crush on him.
But relationships will wait while tennis holds center court. When she gets home from practice, she’d rather just chill or FaceTime friends than go on a date. “And I’m not really that type. I prefer being alone,” she said.
She’s all too content to help her friends text their crushes and plan dates: “They always make fun of me, because they say you give the best relationship advice, but you’ve never been in a relationship.”
For now, weekends off mean sleepovers with friends and walks down to the beach. And lots of BurgerFi. Gauff said she orders the BurgerFi just as it comes and “sometimes a shake depending on how I feel.” But Gauff must wait to share the Wimbledon run with her friends. They were competing at Nationals recently, the same tournament she was in last year. But she’s fine waiting. She understands the demands of the sport: “If I want them to come back sooner, that means I want them to lose, and I don’t want that.”
So on this night, she waits for her mother to finish the day at the bar. Gauff holes up at a table texting and listening to the chatter of regulars and the radio. She scooped up fries like a seagull from a family friend’s plate and then got an inspiration any 15-year-old would understand. Her voice rose three decibels and made a droll request:
“Mom, can I get fries?”
‘I never dreamed about winning that match. Because I was so stuck on the fact of them knowing me. That was crazy.’ Coco Gauff, 15-year-old tennis player on her victory over Venus Williams at Wimbledon this year