{"id":33170,"date":"2022-06-02T05:13:18","date_gmt":"2022-06-02T05:13:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/coco-gauff-is-hard-to-beat\/"},"modified":"2022-06-02T05:13:18","modified_gmt":"2022-06-02T05:13:18","slug":"coco-gauff-is-hard-to-beat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/coco-gauff-is-hard-to-beat\/","title":{"rendered":"Coco Gauff Is Hard To Beat"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This isn’t as common as it used to be in tennis, but it is still possible for critics to stare at a child who cannot legally vote and think, “Well, what the hell have you even accomplished lately?” Coco Gauff \u2014 just 18 years old but a de facto veteran, which is what happens when you break into the fourth round of Wimbledon as a 15-year-old \u2014 now has some fine answers to this question. For one: She finished<\/a> home school and celebrated graduation at the Eiffel Tower, which is probably cooler than whatever you did to mark your graduation. For another: She has figured out what kind of tennis player she is. Though her talent and tools di lei were always obvious, it can be hard, in those early days of prodigy, to envision what the finished player might look like. Each match she wins at this year’s French Open is building the case: Coco is already one of the best defenders in tennis, and she will only get harder and harder to break through as she gets physically stronger. The women’s game has seen some all-time defenders in this era \u2014 Simona Halep and Angelique Kerber, to name two of the best \u2014 but perhaps none with Gauff’s athletic upside. A new brick wall is rising on the WTA.<\/p>\n

Last season, it became clear that clay was most apt surface for Gauff’s hyper-mobile game. She went 16-4 on the 2021 clay season, ending in the quarterfinals of the French Open, where she lost to eventual champ Barbora Krejickova \u2014 her best showing di lei at a major until this week. This clay season, Gauff didn’t have such success leading up to Paris, but upon arrival at the main event, the No. 18 seed hasn’t blinked, winning 10 sets in a row en route to Thursday’s semifinal. It should be noted that Coco has also benefited from others’ misfortune; the top four seeds in her half of the draw ate it in the first and second rounds. The highest-ranked player Gauff faced, No. 31 seed Elise Mertens, also happened to be the one she dispatched most easily, dropping just four games. In the next round she ably handled Sloane Stephens, another top-tier defender whose forehand is sharper than any of Coco’s strokes.<\/p>\n

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