By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Saturday September 8, 2023
Coco Gauff didn’t enable herself to have any grand visions of successful the US Open title this week. She’d been burned by that earlier than, earlier this 12 months at Roland-Garros, and the wise-beyond-her-years 19-year-old discovered her lesson.
“I thought of it, however I advised myself to get it out of my head, as a result of that is what I did at French,” Gauff stated after taking out Aryna Sabalenka, 2-6, 6-3, 6-2 on Saturday in Arthur Ashe Stadium. I used to be envisioning, you understand, what would occur if I’d win. I believe I wished it an excessive amount of.
“Final evening, I began just a little bit, however actually, I simply known as my boyfriend, and I advised him let’s speak till it is time to fall asleep so we spoke till 1:00 a.m. after which I went to sleep.
“I wakened this morning. Yeah, after I misplaced the primary set I nonetheless felt I used to be into the match and I stated, you understand, I’ll give it my all. You recognize, no matter occurs occurs.”
Gauff: “Actually, you understand, the French Open second, I do not know in the event that they caught it on digicam however I watched Iga elevate up that trophy, and I watched her the entire time. I stated, I am not going to take my eyes off her, as a result of I wish to really feel what that felt like for her.”
— TennisNow (@Tennis_Now) September 10, 2023
Gauff, who turned the youngest American to win a US Open girls’s singles title since Serena Williams in 1999, says that her season took flip for the higher after this 12 months’s French Open, which was a pivotal expertise for her. She put an excessive amount of thought into defending her runner-up factors from final 12 months, and it damage her efficiency.
“I really feel like most likely this French Open is actually the place it modified,” she stated of the uptick in kind that result in hear successful 18 of 19 matches because the begin of the Citi Open in D.C. this August. “As a result of I felt strain to again up the ultimate, and I clearly did not. So I used to be, like, Okay, nicely, I’ve bought to reset. Then Wimbledon occurred, and that was a tricky, powerful loss, as a result of I believed I used to be enjoying good tennis main as much as that.
Gauff additionally referred to her expertise at Roland-Garros, when she misplaced the ultimate to Iga Swiatek in 2022, as a formative expertise.
“Actually, you understand, the French Open second, I do not know in the event that they caught it on digicam however I watched Iga elevate up that trophy, and I watched her the entire time,” she stated. “I stated, I am not going to take my eyes off her, as a result of I wish to really feel what that felt like for her.
“That felt like craziness immediately lifting this trophy. It hasn’t sunken in and I believe it most likely will possibly in per week or so.”