“My Mission is To Be The Greatest” – Coco Gauff After Beating Venus Williams at Australian Open 2020

The young tennis phenom from the United States Coco Gauff once again stormed past her idol Venus Williams in the opening round of Grand Slam. The 15-year-old Gauff defeated the seven-time Grand Slam champion Williams 7-6 (5), 6-3 and progressed into the second round of the Australian Open 2020. 

Post her win on Monday, Coco Gauff reflected upon her long term plans in the field of tennis. She believes that someday her name will be associated alongside the tennis greats and engraved in the history books of the sport. Her goal is to have a series of Grand Slams like Serena Williams does. “My mission is to be the greatest. That’s my goal, to win as many Grand Slams as possible,” Gauff said.

“I believe I can beat anyone” – Coco Gauff

World Number 67 Coco Gauff believes that she can overcome anyone on the WTA Tour. The young American respects everyone’s game but simultaneously she is not ready to settle in the loser’s domain. And certainly, Coco has full faith in herself that she can pull off the Australian Open title this year.

“If I go into a tournament thinking I’ll lose, then I’m going to lose. I believe I can beat anyone, but I think that’s almost every player’s mentality. The ones who are the great ones, they don’t really fear anyone. You respect your opponent, but you can’t go into the match fearing someone because then you’re going to lose, and I don’t want to lose,” Gauff added.

The 15-year-old Coco Gauff defeated the top-ten player Kiki Bertens in Linz Open 2019. Later as the lucky loser of the tournament, she went on to pull off the title by upsetting the Grand Slam champion Jelena Ostapenko in finals.

“I don’t really take life too seriously” – Gauff

In her post-match press conference, she talked about her social media activities. Coco mentioned that she is “very active” on TikTok (the video-sharing application) and that generally forces her to procrastinate other things.

“I procrastinate a lot on that app. I have to do homework. Everyone thinks I’m so serious because of my on-court (demeanor). Really I’m not. I don’t really take life too seriously, I just like to have fun. Same with my dad. I know my dad seems like this big, intimidating guy. But he’s really more the jokester,” said Cori Coco Gauff.

In Melbourne, Venus Williams had an upper-hand on the winners, and both the American ladies were serving 77 percent of their first serves in. The oldest player in the draw, Venus lost her control over the unforced errors and that drove Coco towards the victory. Up next, Gauff sets up her second-round clash against Sorona Cirstea from Romania.