Pressure is a privilege when it comes to Coco Gauff! From making the headlines at the 2019 Wimbledon Championships as a 15-year-old by defeating the five-time champion, Venus Williams, in straight sets in the first round to reaching her first major final at the 2022 French Open, before finally tasting success at the Grand Slam level in 2023 (US Open) and 2025 (French Open), Gauff has come a long way. However, with this rapid rise comes the burden of higher expectations. But is it really a burden? “I have to remind myself I think I have a long career ahead of me, so I can’t really dwell on the outside comments,” she once said. Despite her young age (21), Gauff has demonstrated a remarkable ability to handle all these outside noises and keep herself focused on chasing excellence. How does she do that so efficiently?

Well, Coco Gauff is someone who uses the “doubters as motivation.” That’s been the secret to her incredible mental strength. In 2023, when she won the US Open title, she said, “Thank you to the people who didn’t believe in me. To those who thought they were putting water on my fire, you were really adding gas to it. Now I’m really burning so bright right now.” Even this year, before the French Open, where she claimed she had “unfinished business,” there were a lot of doubters debunking her chances at Roland Garros. So, after becoming the first American woman since Serena Williams (in 2015) to win the French Open title, she yet again sent a clear message to all those doubters.

Addressing all those noises in an interview with TODAY, Coco Gauff said, “People say the first time is luck and the second time is a habit. So, I wanted the second time to be a habit and hopefully, I can get a third and fourth and all of that…I just wanted to prove to people I can do it again.”

Be it tackling the higher expectations or silencing her doubters, Gauff has now learned how to ace all those things! Talking about how she manages to stay level-headed or not listen to the noise when she’s behind, and turn things around in her favor, Gauff said, “Honestly, I think it just takes a lot of trial and error.“

In that same podcast, ‘Nice Talk with Nikki Ogunnaike‘, she added, “I realized it’s almost impossible to escape the noise. So I think for me it’s just trying to remember what my expectations of myself are, what expectations of the people around me have of me, and keeping those morals really close and important. And sometimes I do welcome the noise. I think it gives me a reason to prove people wrong or also prove people right. So, it’s something that is finding the right balance of doing both.” 

This win at Roland Garros had silenced all those critics who had labeled her a one-slam wonder! She defeated the world number one, Aryna Sabalenka, 6(5)-7,6-2,6-4 at the Roland Garros final. How tough was this win in comparison to her maiden Grand Slam triumph at the US Open in 2023? “I think this [Grand Slam] win was harder than the first because you don’t want to get satisfied with just that one,” said the American. Coco Gauff aims to finish her career with “double digits” when it comes to Grand Slam counts. She has now only got a double, but can she make it to triple at Wimbledon?

Analyzing Coco Gauff’s chances of finding a similar success on grass

Although Coco Gauff has reached the fourth round of the Wimbledon Championships thrice (2019,2021,2024) in her career, she has failed to go beyond that in her previous attempts. Will this incredible title triumph give her the needed push to go a step in at the grass-court major this season? While sharing her thoughts about her approach on grass this season, Gauff claimed that she’s going to approach it “a lot more freer” and she feels less pressure this time. 

In the same podcast (‘Nice Talk’), she was asked to share her mindset going into Berlin and Wimbledon after having recently secured her second major title at Roland Garros. Replying to that question, Gauff said, “Yeah, going to Berlin, I don’t feel any pressure just because it’s so soon. So, I’m going to use that tournament just to see where I’m on grass.“ But having said that, she also mentioned that she feels “pretty confident” going into Wimbledon this year. But what do tennis experts have to say on this?

Talking about her chances at Wimbledon, Chris Evert said, “She (Coco Gauff) is going to win all of them, yeah. For sure, she can win on every surface. She has won on clay and on hard. I can definitely see that she can win Wimbledon.” But for this edition, she kept Aryna Sabalenka slightly ahead. Even the former British tennis player, Laura Robson, claimed, “I don’t know who is favourite in the women’s Wimbledon event. I would probably say [Aryna] Sabalenka because she’s done well there in the past, but for Coco [Gauff] it’s been a surface which hasn’t quite given her the results that the other Slams have. Even though Gauff has made the fourth round three times, there’s not been that standout result, I’d say, so I think that leaves it quite open for some new faces to come in.”

Robson also kept Madison Keys on the list of favorites for the 2025 Wimbledon Championships. But according to John Isner, it’s just a matter of time before Coco Gauff finds success in the other two Slams (AO and Wimbledon). Do you think Gauff is a favorite at Wimbledon this year?