Coco Gauff has enjoyed a superb rise on the WTA Tour since breaking onto the scene as a teenage superstar.
Gauff made her WTA main draw debut at Miami in 2019, with a Grand Slam main draw debut following shortly after at Wimbledon.
And it was then that the American truly introduced herself to the world, with Gauff beating Venus Williams in her very first match at the iconic tournament.
She was just 15 years old at the time, with Gauff thanking Williams at the net after the match because of how inspiring she’d been for her career.
What Mary Joe Fernandez told Coco Gauff before her Wimbledon clash with Venus Williams
Before the match, however, she was given crucial advice by Mary Joe Fernandez, a three-time Grand Slam singles finalist and two-time doubles champion.
Asked by Forbes if beating Williams at Wimbledon was surreal, Gauff said: “Yeah. Even now, like moments when I watch that back, it doesn’t feel like me, I just feel like I’m watching somebody else.
“I remember when the draw came out, my dad was like, ‘Oh, you have Venus’. And I remember inside being ‘Oh, that’s great’.
“Obviously you’re hoping to play someone maybe ranked a lot lower and not Venus in your first match, which I was definitely hoping for.
“But I felt like for me, I just thought that, okay well I have nothing to lose out there. So I was like let me go out there and just see what I can do.
“And I actually had a conversation with Mary Joe Fernandez, she’s a three-time Slam finalist before that, and she was like, ‘Don’t go out there and see how many games you can get, go out there to win’.
“And that conversation changed my whole perspective of how I approached that match, because I was definitely going out there to see if I can just get a few games and not be blown out.
How far will Coco Gauff go at the 2026 Australian Open?
“You have the belief that you can win. But I feel like there’s a difference of belief and then also knowing. I had belief, but I was like I don’t know if I could do it, especially Venus at Wimbledon, she’s the queen of that surface.
“At the time I definitely knew grass… it still isn’t… but I definitely knew grass wasn’t the best surface for me.
“But yeah I just remember not looking at the scoreboard because I didn’t want to see Venus Williams’ name.
“I didn’t want to look at her. So I was just trying to treat it as me playing the qualifying matches that I did the week prior.”
Why Coco Gauff is strong on clay when ‘most Americans aren’t’
Gauff’s stunning efforts indeed started out in qualifying, where she won all three of her matches before beating Williams.
And the phenomenal run didn’t end there, with the American knocking out Magdalena Rybarikova and Polona Hercog before a round of 16 loss to Simona Halep.
It is, however, the furthest Gauff has reached at Wimbledon, instead enjoying success at the US Open and French Open.
Sharing insight into her success at the latter, Gauff explained how a trip to the Patrick Mouratoglou Academy helped her become a top talent on clay.
She recalled: “Yeah, that was my first time leaving the country. I was training in Florida and everything, but I’d never experienced training to that level. It was like a whole new thing for me.
“We were doing the usual fitness I was doing at home, which was just a couple of cone drills, the typical afterschool fitness or whatever. But that was just like training, explosiveness, balancing, like all stuff I never knew about.
“And so I learned a lot from that week that I spent there, and then I went back home and tried to implement it. And then they invited me to come back… I still go there, but come back and do more training there.
“So I definitely think it changed and it helped me become a good clay court player, which most Americans aren’t. It’s not our best surface. So I credit that a lot to his academy.”
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Either side of her hard court success at the US Open in 2023, Gauff reached two finals at the French Open.
She suffered defeat to Iga Swiatek in the first in 2022, but recovered to beat Aryna Sabalenka earlier this year.
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