Looking back at how Coco Gauff won her first ever WTA title at just 15 years old and the rare way in which she did it

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Coco Gauff has nine titles to her name in 2025, highlighted by her maiden Grand Slam victory at the US Open.

Gauff beat Aryna Sabalenka to win the US Open in 2023, but was unable to defend her title a year later where she lost in the fourth round to compatriot Emma Navarro.

Following her relatively poor North American hard court swing, Gauff split with coach Brad Gilbert and quickly replaced him with Matt Daly.

After bringing Daly into her team, Gauff saw improved results straight away and won her first tournament with the new coach at the China Open.

This form continued until the end of the 2024 season, when Gauff won the WTA Finals in Riyadh to claim a record $4.8million in prize money.

The WTA Finals is Gauff’s ninth and most recent title, with her first coming in a very unique way.

Coco Gauff wins the Upper Austria Ladies Linz title in rare way

Gauff had a breakout debut season in 2019 at just 15-years-old, that included making her Grand Slam debut at Wimbledon.

After coming through qualifying, Gauff stunned Venus Williams en route to reaching the Wimbledon fourth round.

Gauff was eventually beaten by Simona Halep, who went onto win the Wimbledon title that year.

The teenager would go onto impress at the US Open that year as well, reaching the third round as a wildcard before losing to top seed Naomi Osaka.

Following her exit from the US Open, Gauff would play just her third WTA Tour event at the Upper Austria Ladies in Linz, where she would have to go through qualifying as the world number 110 at the time.

Despite winning her first qualifying match against Liudmila Samsonova, Gauff’s singles journey was brought to an end after losing to German player Tamara Korpatsch, or so she thought.

After sixth seed Maria Sakkari withdrew from the tournament, lucky loser Gauff stepped in to take her place and took full advantage of her last-minute lifeline.

Beating Stefani Voegele and Kateryna Baindl in the first two rounds, Gauff reached her first WTA quarter-final where she would play top seed and world number eight Kiki Bertens.

Although there were 102 places between their rankings at the time, Gauff went onto beat Bertens in straight sets to obtain her first top 10 win and progress to the semi-finals.

Gauff would beat Andrea Petkovic to reach her first WTA final, before overcoming the hard-hitting Jelena Ostapenko to complete a dream week in Austria.

After winning her first WTA title, Gauff spoke in her press conference about how shocked she was and revealed what her dad had said after she got into the draw as a lucky loser.

“It’s just literally insane that I got in as a lucky loser and now I’m the champion,” said Gauff.

“My dad told me when I got in, before the first main-draw match, he said ‘You can’t lose twice in the same tournament!’ I’m sure he never thought it would come this far, to being the champion, but I guess he was right!”

Not only did Gauff make history as only the third lucky loser to go on and win a WTA title at the time, but she is still to this day the ninth youngest women’s title winner at just 15 years and 7 months.

Gauff is now world number three and no longer has to worry about qualifying for tournaments.

Other lucky losers who went onto win the title

Winning a title as a lucky loser is an incredibly rare feat, and at the time Gauff was only the third player in history to win a WTA tournament after losing in qualifying.

The first was Andrea Jaeger in 1980, who was actually younger than Gauff, at 14 years and seven months, when she won the Las Vegas Valley title.

There was then a 28 year gap between the first and second lucky loser WTA champions when Olga Danilovic triumphed in Moscow in 2018.

Although it is still an incredibly rare feat, the amount of lucky loser champions on the WTA Tour doubled in 2023 after there were three in the space of just one month.

There have actually been more lucky loser champions on the ATP Tour (10), with the most recent coming at the Adelaide International in 2023 when Soon-woo Kwon soared to victory from the jaws of defeat.

Jan-Lennard Struff also made history in 2023, as the first lucky loser to reach a Masters 1000 final at the Madrid Open, before being beaten by Carlos Alcaraz.

While no player has ever won a Grand Slam title after losing in qualifying, multiple players have managed to reach the fourth round.

The most recent case of this was Eva Lys reaching the Australian Open second week in 2025.