Over the weekend American rising star Coco Gauff proclaimed that she ‘likes the clay now’ and with good reason too.
The 17-year-old has already recorded a series of impressive results on the clay this season with a run to the quarter-finals in Charleston followed by reaching the semi-finals of the Italian Open a few weeks later. Her Rome run is Gauff’s best-ever performance at a WTA 1000 event to date. However, it was last week in Parma where she triumphed by winning both the singles and doubles titles. Becoming the youngest player on the Tour to do so since Maria Sharapova back in 2004.
Gauff’s surge has elevated her to a ranking high of 25th in the world. She will now be seeded at next week’s French Open where she will be the youngest seed in a Grand Slam since Nicole Vaidisova at the 2005 Wimbledon Championships.
“I feel really good about going into the French,” Gauff told reporters over the weekend. “I hope I can continue to build and keep getting better.
“I feel like I’m hitting good, moving good, my body feels good, my mentality and emotionally I feel good. So I think it will be a good tournament for me.”
The teenager admits that she is starting to warm to the clay following her recent bout in success on the surface. She is now the fifth highest ranked American player on the WTA Tour which places her as a strong challenger for Olympic qualification. The country is only allowed to take four singles players to the Games but Serena Williams has previously cast doubts on her participation.
“It’s not a surface that people associate me with, so it feels good,” Gauff said. “I like the dirt now. I always talk about how I don’t like it, but I like it now.”
“Clay shows you a little extra love than the other surfaces do. It’s just going home, taking a shower, and I have clay coming out of me from all different places, or clay still in my clothes from weeks later. So that’s the only thing I don’t like about it. But obviously, performance-wise I do well on it.”
Gauff’s previous lack of love for the clay is in some way surprising as she has previously done well on the surface. Back in 2018 she won the French Open girls’ title at the age of 14. As a professional she made her main draw debut at the Grand Slam last year where she stunned ninth seed Johanna Konta in the first round before losing to Martina Trevisan.
The French Open main draw will start next Monday.
