After overcoming the pressure to win a Grand Slam singles championship as a teenager, Coco Gauff feels free to discuss her next goal of reaching double digits in her career total.
“Some players’ goal is to win a Grand Slam. Once they reach that, it’s kind of what’s next,” she said, according to Tennis365.
“I always knew I wanted to win multiple,” she continued. “It was kind of easy to forget about it. Not ‘forget’. I think that’s the wrong word. Maybe just put it in the past and look forward to the future instead of dwelling on the past.”
When asked what number of Grand Slams she hoped to win, Gauff replied that she didn’t know exactly how many, but she wanted to hit “double digits.”
“That could change depending on how my career goes. Right now I would say double-digits would be pretty awesome. I don’t know if it will happen, but I think that’s a high goal. I think setting my goals high pushes me beyond what I think I can do,” she said.
“I would say recently, I feel like I wanted to get double-digits. That’s, like, cool. But there’s no number,” she replied.
The 19-year-old is the reigning Grand Slam champion going into the Australian Open. If she hadn’t met her goals at the U.S. Open the previous year, this would have been her final opportunity to win a major as a teenage athlete. Gauff, who turns 20 years old in March, intends to play with more freedom now that she is the No. 4 seed at Melbourne Park.
“It [the ASB Classic win] gives me a lot of confidence, especially sometimes when you’re playing a tournament and some of the matches are going pretty easily for the score line,” Gauff said. “It was cool to see how I was able to react under pressure, especially after losing the first set when I was up.
