The 2025 season is shaping up to be the year of America’s star player Coco Gauff. With a stellar performance at the ongoing United Cup, the 2023 US Open champion has fueled excitement among the fans.
As she now sets her sights on the upcoming Australian Open, Gauff reflects on a pivotal milestone in her career that highlights why she truly deserves all the accolades.
Gauff is charged up for the 2025 Australian Open. After being criticized for her serve for a major part of the last season, she made a change to her coaching staff, replacing Brad Gilbert with Matt Daly.
The partnership worked right away, as Gauff showed significant improvements in her game, bagging the 2024 WTA Tour Finals title and finishing the season on a high.
And, now she has carried the momentum into the new season as well, leading Team USA to the finals with quality performances on the court.
Having won a Grand Slam title already as a teenager, Gauff is hoping to add another one to her tally in Melbourne.
The 2023 US Open winner bagged her first Grand Slam when she was 19, replicating Serena Williams’ feat who won the 1999 US Open in 1999 when she was 17. The Australian Open’s official IG platform shared a reel highlighting Gauff’s spirit.
In the video, the World No. 3 can be heard saying, “Winning a Grand Slam is the biggest shot that I dreamed. I do wanna win a Slam as a teenager and I did that. Up there was Serena and Capriati. Every year I think I’m getting better and better. I think that confidence will bring me into the Australian Open this year.”
Gauff generally starts her season with ASB Classic in Auckland. But this time around, she opted to participate in the United Cup and she revealed the reasons for that.
“For me, I wanted to play a higher level of competition and also a team competition. I had a lot of fun with the Paris Olympics.
The season’s already so much by ourselves that it’s nice to mix it up. I think for all of us the main focus is the Australian Open and doing well there,” Gauff said.
Gauff might be excited about the Melbourne major, but the job is not done yet at the United Cup. She has to showcase her skills in the finals once again, where she will be up against one of her arch-rivals, Iga Swiatek.
Talking about the head-to-head between the two players, Iga Swiatek has dominated Coco Gauff, winning 11 out of the 13 matches. However, the recent encounter at the WTA Finals went in Gauff’s favor and she will draw a lot of confidence from that.
Iga Swiatek praises Coco Gauff ahead of their United Cup Finals clash.
Ahead of the United Cup final, Swiatek was asked about Gauff and the Polish star showered praise on her very familiar opponent.
“Coco, you know, she’s playing great, I think. I mean, I haven’t watched, but Coco is I think at this stage she’s developing every month, and it’s going to be also a nice challenge, and, you know, I’m happy with my game.
I can kind of play without expectations and just push for more as I did today. I’ll be happy anyway if I do, like, the same kind of work I did today, like, no matter the result. So I’ll focus on myself,” said Swiatek.
Despite Swiatek leading 11-2 in head-to-head, Gauff successfully overpowered the Polish player during the WTA Finals Group Stage match by 6-3, and 6-4.
“Obviously playing Iga is tough for me, but I’m really happy how I managed to play throughout the match. And, yeah, it was a fun crowd environment. It was pretty exciting. So I’m glad to get through today,” Gauff said post-victory against Swiatek.
She further added, “I think just confidence. I was very confident in Riyadh. Yeah, I think when I’m playing confident tennis, that’s my best tennis. It makes it hard for her or anyone to really do anything. So tomorrow I’m just going to go out there and be confident,” said Gauff.
Coco Gauff is oozing confidence ahead of the Australian Open, with improved form as compared to the last season. Are you backing Gauff to win her second Grand Slam title in Melbourne?
