Is Coco Gauff the favorite for the women's singles title at the US Open? Your Honor, she's got a strong case.
Even if she's not the oddsmakers' top pick, the American teenager will arrive at the year's final Grand Slam tournament as, at the very least, the hottest player on the WTA Tour after going unbeaten on U.S. hard courts this summer so far.
Gauff won her second title in a three-week span on Sunday at the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati with a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Karolina Muchova, the Roland Garros finalist, to bring her career haul to five tour-level singles crowns. Her first WTA 1000 triumph followed her first WTA 500 win, two weeks prior, at the Mubadala Citi DC Open, where she didn't lose a set and beat three Top 20 players en route. The 19-year-old, in fact, went 11-1 in three hard-court tournaments after Wimbledon overall, with her only loss coming in the quarterfinals of the WTA 1000 event in Montreal, Canada, to her fellow American (and doubles partner) Jessica Pegula—the eventual champion—in between her two titles.
Gauff, already a major finalist at Roland Garros last year, pointed to the three-set, opening-round loss she suffered to Sofia Kenin on July 3 at the All England Club as the watershed moment in her season. At that point, she'd reached just one final (which she won, at the WTA 250 in Auckland, New Zealand in the season's first week), and had only won back-to-back matches in two of the eight events she played from the Miami Open in late March through the grass-court major.
“I could either let this crush me, or I can rise from it,” she said on Tennis Channel this week. “I rose from it."
But to do that, Gauff took a leap of faith.
In D.C., she debuted an enhanced coaching team, with former Spanish pro Pere Riba, who linked up with Gauff at Wimbledon, accompanied by what she called a consultant, the player-turned-coach-and-commentator Brad Gilbert. Gilbert famously guided Andre Agassi to six of his eight Grand Slam titles, and also previously worked with Andy Roddick and Andy Murray. His long resume, and prior stints with players who've won major titles, she said, served as a perfect complement to the 35-year-old Riba's youthful vigor.
"I think having someone with a little bit more experience will help me like for the pressure moments, the semifinals, finals, quarterfinals," Gauff said in D.C. "Those moments that I still think I need to get better at."
Gilbert and Riba have a "good stream of communication," according to Gauff. They spoke amongst themselves to determine how their perspectives on her tennis meshed before agreeing to the new partnership, she said.
"Let's be real, anybody who is watching me play knows what I need to work on," Gauff said, alluding to the critques her forehand groundstroke and her tendency to play defensively have often received. "They're not butting heads at all. We have the same plan. That's what was most important for me."
"I'm trying to hit the next gear of my game," she added. "I feel like I have the foundation in my game. Now it's building around that, it's building the house, I guess, essentially. I have the land and I need to build the house on top of it, make it as extravagant and big and pretty as possible."
Gauff's run in Cincinnati was also notable for her first-ever win over world No. 1 Iga Swiatek in the semifinals; after losing her first seven matches, and 14 sets, against the top-ranked Pole, Gauff beat her 7-6(4), 3-6, 6-4 in the penultimate round.
"I was telling myself, 'You're a warrior, you can do this," she said afterwards. "I was just saying, 'I'm Coco Gauff, and I can do it.'"
And in three weeks' time, she'll hope that same belief will carry her through to another first, this time on the Grand Slam stage.
