Coco Gauff Enters an Elite List With Venus Williams, Maria Sharapova and Others

In recent years, American teenager Coco Gauff has made great progression in her career. From time to time, she has managed to cause upsets by beating some of the big names on the women’s Tour. Some of her greatest accomplishments have been registering a win over five-time champion Venus Williams at Wimbledon and the defending Australian Open champion Naomi Osaka in Melbourne.

Recently, Gauff achieved yet another incredible feat. By reaching the semifinal at the Italian Open in Rome this week, the young American finds her name in the same frame as Maria Sharapova, Venus Williams, and Steffi Graf, to name a few.

Coco Gauff accomplishes great milestone in Rome

At the age of 17 years and 61 days, Gauff has placed herself over the three above-mentioned names as one of the youngest players to reach the semifinals of the tournament. However, she trails behind former greats like Martina Hingis and Monica Seles at 15 years 218 days, and 16 years and 156 days, respectively. It is a tremendous achievement by the youngster and only highlights what one can expect from her in the future.

Currently, Coco is in Rome and has reached the semifinal after her opponent, World No. 1 Ashleigh Barty retired midway through their match due to a right arm injury. Nonetheless, in the earlier rounds, the teenager beat Greek tennis player Maria Sakkari and the recently crowned Madrid Open champion Aryna Sabalenka.

Moving on to tennis played this season, the 17-year-old began her season early in Abu Dhabi. However, her performances were not the best we’ve seen her play; she has played a number of tournaments so far but she has not managed to go deep into events.

Gauff began her clay-court season at the Volvo Car Open in Charleston. After that, she featured in Madrid last week. However, it is her performances from this week that have begin to catch the attention of the fans of the sport.

After reaching the semifinal, she now awaits the winner of the match between the fifth seed Elina Svitolina and defending French Open champion Iga Swiatek. It’ll be interesting to see how the American youngster fairs in the upcoming challenge.

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