Coco Gauff has been on an incredible run since her first-round loss at Wimbledon, and is talking confidently after her biggest title of her young career to date. The American teenager defeated Karolina Muchova to win the Cincinnati Masters ahead of the US Open, where she is now one of the favorites to win her first Grand Slam.
Earlier this week, Gauff had played down her chances after being put in a tough draw in the US Open, where she could face Iga Swiatek, Elena Rybakina, Jelena Ostapenko and Petra Kvitova all before getting to the final.
But in her last interview before the tournament, Gauff says she will continue to ride the winning streak that she’s on, as she plays her best tennis of her young career. Although she knows she cannot continue to win as dominantly as she has been in recent weeks, she does not plan for that to stop at the US Open – despite admitting how tough her road could be.
She told reporters on her hot-streak eventually coming to an end: “It’s going to happen. Just not this week.” Gauff has an incredible record on the hard court this season, with 11 wins and just one loss – winning two titles, including the Cincinnati Masters last week in the US Open tune-up.
Coming in as the sixth ranked womens player, Gauff said she knows she can win the tournament – having changing her mindset as she knows she will suffer disappointing moments in her career and knows how to bounce back.
She said: “I know I’m up right now, and I know I’m going to experience a down. I think that’s really where the mindset has changed. Sometimes I’ll let a loss get too much into me. I realize that everybody loses, even the best of the best.
“Having like that first-round loss at Wimbledon shows that it wasn’t really as bad as it could happen. So I’m not going into this tournament worried if I lose early or not.
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“I learned a lot over this last couple weeks – more so on my wins I think than I have in the past. The most I’ve learned over the course of this summer is that I don’t have to play A-plus tennis to win.
“Obviously going into the match, you hope to play the best tennis you can play, but it’s not possible all the time… sometimes I think when I wasn’t playing my best tennis or wasn’t playing great, I would kind of shut down a little bit mentally. Now I’m just figuring it out as I go.”
Gauff has earned 900 WTA ranking points for her victory in Cincinnati. She also earned $454,500 and became the fourth American champion of the event, following Lindsay Davenport (2004), Serena Williams (2014, 2015) and Madison Keys (2019).
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