Coco will chase teenage dream in a perfect final
After a bruising few days for women’s tennis comes soothing balm in the form of an almost perfect line-up for tomorrow’s french Open final.
Coco Gauff will play her first major championship match at just 18, even though she seems to have been around forever. Her opponent will be world No 1 Iga Swiatek, on a run of 34 consecutive victories.
It could hardly have worked out better after the rumpus that followed the lack of women’s matches in the new night session at roland Garros and the clunking comments of tournament director Amelie Mauresmo.
there will be no lack of star quality when Gauff, this remarkably poised American teenager with such a high emotional IQ, tackles the Pole who is displaying a rare dominance of the WtA tour. the pair lost just seven games between them yesterday afternoon as they cruised into the final.
Gauff’s relatively steady ascent to the game’s peak could hardly be better timed and her 6-3, 6-1 win over Italian outsider Martina trevisan never looked in doubt.
Not someone who struggles to look beyond the confines of a tennis court, she used her on-court speech to declare that recent world events had put her attempts to win a Grand Slam in perspective. She ended up writing ‘Peace, end gun violence’ on the tV camera as she left.
‘for me, it’s close to home. I had some friends who were a part of the Parkland shooting,’ she said later. ‘My dad told me I could change the world with my racket. He didn’t mean by just playing tennis. He meant speaking out on issues like this. I know people around the world are watching.’
Gauff is even younger than emma raducanu was when she reached last year’s US Open final, and is the most youthful finalist at any major since Maria Sharapova won Wimbledon at 17 in 2004. She has been a slow burner compared to the way raducanu emerged in explosive fashion, but, like the British player, has made sure she finished her secondary education. ‘It has been a good graduation week,’ she said, referring to the official receipt of her diploma before the tournament.
Some would have expected it to happen sooner when she defeated Venus Williams at Wimbledon aged 15 in 2019, but the build-up of results has taken time.
Gauff’s articulate manner should not be confused with any softness. Within two games she had complained to the umpire about trevisan’s loud grunt, to no avail.
Now she has to find a way to defuse the clean hitting of Swiatek, who ruthlessly dismissed russia’s Daria Kasatkina 6-2, 6-1. Swiatek is one match away from equalling the 21st-century record held by Venus, who amassed 35 consecutive wins in 2000. Gauff’s outstanding movement in defence will be stretched by the Pole’s power and accuracy.
Mauresmo will be happy to have a proper marquee final after her remarks on the imbalance between men’s and women’s matches, which she wrongly claimed yesterday were taken out of context.
‘I want to say sorry to the players who really felt bad about what I said,’ she told America’s tennis Channel. It looks like there will be a rethink of the evening schedule, which had nine men’s matches compared to one women’s match.
‘Because we have one match only I feel that it’s really tougher to schedule a woman’s match. We have to take into consideration the length.’