Look, at some point, Coco Gauff was going to lose a tennis match.
No one wins forever, even a teenage Grand Slam winner seemingly destined for greatness who has to deal with all the attendant pressures that come with reaching the pinnacle of the sport.
She was going to have to deal with the inevitable niggles, discomforts and injuries that happen when someone starts to reach the deep end at nearly every tournament they enter.
The good feels that began with Gauff’s triumph in Washington, D.C. in mid-summer gained steam with another winner’s trophy near Cincinnati in late August and peaked with victory at the U.S. Open in September before hopping across the Pacific Ocean for four more solid wins at the China Open in Beijing.
But then came a semi-final loss in China on Saturday to Iga Swiatek, the world No 2, who herself knows something about the rough seas that can accompany a teenage breakthrough.
“One of the goals I set earlier in the year was for me to do well in the big events,” Gauff, 19, said after the loss to Swiatek, during which she received treatment on her sore right shoulder from a physiotherapist. “I accomplished that goal. I’m really proud of myself.”
As well she should be. Now comes the tricky part: making sure she isn’t a tennis one-hit-wonder, but rather the kind of enduring champion who fills a room with important trophies throughout her career.
“She’s won her Grand Slam, but she wants to win many of them,” said Alessandro Barel Di Sant Albano of Team8, who is Gauff’s agent.
There are plenty of road maps. Tennis does not lack teenage Grand Slam champions who went on to have epic careers — Bjorn Borg, Serena Williams, Chris Evert, Mats Wilander, Monica Seles, Rafael Nadal, Maria Sharapova among others.
Swiatek and Carlos Alcaraz seem well on their way, but teen success hardly guarantees a career of triumph. Just ask Bianca Andreescu, Emma Raducanu or Jelena Ostapenko, who all experienced rapid journeys to the top of the mountain; maybe too rapid.
Even Swiatek, now 22, who also burst practically out of nowhere to win the French Open in 2020, was teetering on the edge of an emotional break by the end of the next year, unable to deal with the stress of adjusting to life as a Grand Slam champion suddenly playing with a massive target on her back.
“A lot of tennis is about levels, moving up from one level to the next,” said Tracy Austin, who beat Martina Navratilova and Evert back-to-back to win the U.S. Open aged 16 in 1979, then returned to biology class at Rolling Hills High School in California days later. “Going through those levels gives you time to get grounded as you move from one level to the next.”
