WORLD AT HER FEET
Will off-court expectations be help or hindrance to star Coco Gauff?
Wimbledon wonder Coco Gauff can change the face of sport
LATE on Friday evening, on a second-floor balcony at the All England Club, Corey Gauff got into it again. He is an affable guy, this father of a phenomenon, and evidently still happy to chew the fat about the force of nature most of us have only been acquainted with for a week.
His 15-year-old daughter, Cori, has dominated the narrative at these championships and her proud family are generally showing an open door to those who want to talk about it.
They have gone over the charming tale a good few times by now — their background, her laps of an athletics track aged three, the stated ambition at the age of six to be the greatest of all time, the poster of Serena Williams on her bedroom wall. It’s all there, and so are his notes of caution about fallen prodigies.
He has a sharp, informed take on all that, having closely studied the issues of the likes of Jennifer Capriati, and while it is rare to know everything about the nurturing of prodigies at this stage in the breakout, he doesn’t strike as a pushy parent. ‘Suggestive coaching’ is the phrase he used with the Daily Mail earlier in the week, and by all logic it makes for a more user-friendly alternative to the paternal barking that broke Jelena Dokic. So far, it is encouraging; so far, the sight of Coco’s mother dancing in the Centre Court crowd and her father grinning have been a big part of a happy tale.
And yet it is also interesting to wonder about some of the other comments he has made and whether they will, in time, prove prophetic or serve as evidence of an inadvertently unhelpful pressure. Take as an example a response Corey Gauff gave to a question about social media in a conversation on Friday night with the Mail on Sunday and a couple of foreign outlets.
‘I always told her when she was a kid you can change the world with a racket,’ he said, echoing sentiments he made earlier in the week. ‘Your voice becomes louder the more you can swing that racket and have success with it. I don’t tell her to stick her head in the ground like an ostrich and ignore the social issues that are important to you. And if it’s morally right and it is worth supporting, support it.
‘Everybody’s not going like the fact of what you’re supporting, what you don’t support, but in your heart if you feel it’s the right thing then go ahead and support it, because I’ll be outspoken about the causes that I want. I’m not going to stick my head in the ground.’
There’s two points in there, of course. The second being that Gauff is not afraid to be an advocate for causes, and that is both admirable and a sign of the times, particularly post-Kaepernick. Even in her days of being largely anonymous, before her profile exploded — she gained 50,000 Twitter followers in the first 24 hours after beating Polona Hercog in the third round — she had been posting about the crisis in Sudan. That can only be applauded, another sign of maturity and self-assurance from someone who is beating women twice her age on the court.
The other point, though, is the unshakeable similarities in the talk of ‘changing the world’ to what Earl Woods once said about Tiger. Even in the context of the greatest sporting prodigy that ever lived, his words of that nature became something of a millstone on his neck.
The sentiment here is innocent, you suspect — Corey Gauff has illustrated via other points that his teaching has been based around the removal of any sense of limit.
That shoot-for-the-stars mindset is plainly an approach which is working in a wonderful way.
But if the single biggest enemy of a young tennis player is pressure and expectation, it is also reasonable to assume those words, and those about being the greatest of all time, will be repeated ad nauseum to her at junctures down the line, particularly when the trajectory stabilises.
For now, though, she is flying. Tomorrow she will face Simona Halep, most likely on one of the two main courts, and once more she will be the only story in town.
The speed of it all is quite something, and Corey Gauff, has made no secret of the fact this is all happening beyond their expectations. ‘Far more,’ he said on Friday. ‘I remember telling her, “There’s only like a small chance you get a wild card (to qualifying) so we’ll do the paperwork and we’ll see what happens”.’
A largely unknown snippet of the journey is that a pep talk from Roger Federer played a part at the start of 2018, when Gauff, then 13, travelled from the US to Melbourne and lost in the first round of both the Australian Open singles and doubles. Gauff is signed to Federer’s management group and the Swiss is credited by the family with a transformation in form that led to the junior French Open title and this run at Wimbledon.
‘The words that he said to her in Australia really helped her,’ said Corey Gauff. ‘She was really down and questioning herself because you go all the way to Australia, the last thing you want to do is lose first round, singles and doubles. But he spoke to her, told her to get back to work, yes it is disappointing, but sometimes you will be disappointed. It helped.’
All that has followed cannot be faulted. It will be truly fascinating to see how much there is to come, both this week and beyond.