{"id":1312012,"date":"2019-07-01T23:08:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-02T05:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/gauff-just-15-shocks-5-time-champ-venus-39-at-wimbledon\/"},"modified":"2019-07-01T23:08:00","modified_gmt":"2019-07-02T05:08:00","slug":"gauff-just-15-shocks-5-time-champ-venus-39-at-wimbledon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/gauff-just-15-shocks-5-time-champ-venus-39-at-wimbledon\/","title":{"rendered":"Gauff, just 15, shocks 5-time champ Venus, 39, at Wimbledon"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
United States’ Cori “Coco” Gauff reacts after beating United States’s Venus Williams in a Women’s singles match during day one of the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Monday, July 1, 2019. (AP Photo\/Tim Ireland)<\/strong>
AP | AP<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

WIMBLEDON, England \u2014 Coco Gauff grew up admiring the Williams sisters. Picked up a tennis racket as a little girl because of them. And on Monday at Wimbledon, still just 15, Gauff beat one of them.<\/p>\n

Gauff, the youngest competitor to qualify at the All England Club in the professional era, showed the poise and power of a much older, much more experienced player, pulling off a 6-4, 6-4 victory in the first round over Venus Williams, who at 39 was the oldest woman in the field.<\/p>\n

When it ended, Gauff dropped her racket and put her hands on her head. After a handshake and exchange of words at the net with Williams, Gauff knelt by her sideline chair and tears welled in her eyes. Up in the stands, her father leaped out of his seat.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, I don\u2019t really know how to feel. This is the first time I ever cried after a match. Or winning, obviously; I\u2019ve cried after a loss before,\u201d said Gauff, who is based in Florida. \u201cI don\u2019t even know how to explain how I feel.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was her third tour-level match; Williams has played more than 1,000. This was Gauff\u2019s first match at Wimbledon, where Williams has played more than 100 and won five titles. By the time Gauff was born in 2004, Williams already had spent time at No. 1 in the rankings and owned four of her seven Grand Slam singles trophies.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt didn\u2019t really seem real, for a moment,\u201d said Gauff\u2019s father, Corey, between handshakes and slaps on the back and requests for selfies from spectators leaving No. 1 Court. \u201cOn the walk to the court, I was walking behind her. She was excited. I was excited. She seemed confident, but I wasn\u2019t sure if it was false confidence or she really was. I just said to her: This match is really magical. Just enjoy it. Your first Wimbledon main draw and you\u2019re on a main court against somebody you looked up to from the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was by far the most anticipated match of Day 1 at the grass-court tournament, but hardly the only upset. Two-time major champion Naomi Osaka, who was No. 1 until a week ago, lost 7-6 (4), 6-2 to Yulia Putinseva, joining two young members of the men\u2019s top-10, No. 6 seed Alexander Zverev and No. 7 seed Stefanos Tsitsipas, on the way out.<\/p>\n

This one, though, was special, potentially the sort of changing-of-the-guard moment that people could remember for years.<\/p>\n

Gauff certainly has the mindset of someone who intends to go far.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve said this before: I want to be the greatest. My dad told me that I could do this when I was 8. Obviously you never believe it. I\u2019m still, like, not 100 percent confident. But, like, you have to just say things. You never know what happens,\u201d she said. \u201cIf I went into this match saying, \u2018Let\u2019s see how many games I can get against her,\u2019 then I most definitely would not have won. My goal was to play my best. My dream was to win. That\u2019s what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

How far does she think she can fare this fortnight?<\/p>\n

\u201cMy goal,\u201d she said, her face expressionless, \u201cis to win it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, then \u2026<\/p>\n

Gauff came into the week outside the top 300 but was granted a wild card by the All England Club to enter qualifying. She rolled through those rounds at a nearby site, knocking off the event\u2019s top seed.<\/p>\n

But this was a whole other task.<\/p>\n

Gauff was sensational and showed zero signs that the moment or the matchup was too daunting for her. It\u2019s the sort of unusual calm and steady way she has progressed through the various levels of youth tennis, including reaching the U.S. Open junior final at 13 and winning the French Open junior title at 14.<\/p>\n

The first set was remarkable: Gauff had 10 winners to only two unforced errors, all the while trading powerful groundstrokes at the baseline with Williams, and never facing a break point.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sky\u2019s the limit,\u201d Williams said. \u201cIt really is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gauff, who is black, idolized Williams and her younger sister, Serena, the first African American women since Althea Gibson in the 1950s to win a Grand Slam singles championship.<\/p>\n

Serena has said Gauff reminds her of Venus.<\/p>\n

After Monday\u2019s match, Gauff said she thanked Venus \u201cfor everything she did.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t be here if it wasn\u2019t for her,\u201d said Gauff, who joined the crowd in applauding for Venus as she walked off the court. \u201cAnd I was just telling her that she\u2019s so inspiring. Like, I always wanted to tell her that. And even though I met her before, I guess now I have the guts to.\u201d<\/p>\n

She showed plenty of grit in this match, particularly after getting broken to make it 4-all in the second set. Gauff steadied herself right there, though, breaking right back with a pair of forehand passing shots that drew errant volleys.<\/p>\n

And then in the final game, Gauff needed to erase the disappointment of wasting her initial three match points. She did just that, converting her fourth when Venus put a forehand into the net.<\/p>\n

Many 15-year-olds might spend an early summer day at the beach or at a mall. This one played a tennis match at Wimbledon against Venus Williams \u2014 and won.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople just kind of limit themselves too much. Once you actually get your goal, then it\u2019s like: What do you do now?\u201d Gauff said. \u201cI like to shoot really high.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

More AP Tennis: https:\/\/www.apnews.com\/apf-Tennis<\/a> and https:\/\/twitter.com\/AP\u2014Sports<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

United States’ Cori “Coco” Gauff reacts after beating United States’s Venus Williams in a Women’s singles match during day one of the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Monday, July 1, 2019. (AP Photo\/Tim Ireland)AP | AP WIMBLEDON, England \u2014 Coco Gauff grew up admiring the Williams sisters. Picked up a tennis racket as a little […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1312012","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-19 22:58:52","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1312012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312012\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1312012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1312012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1312012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}