Cori "Coco" Gauff was born on March 13, 2004, and has already been ranked #49 by the WTA. Inspired by the Williams sisters, she decided to pursue tennis at only the age of six. Her father Corey played NCAA D1 basketball at Georgia State University and her mother Candi was a track and field athlete at Florida State University.
Before turning professional, Gauff reached the world number 1 position in the ITF junior rankings after winning the Roland Garros girls title. At the Osprey $25K event in May 2018, she won her first professional match.
Gauff had her professional breakthrough at Wimbledon 2019, where she became the youngest tennis player to win a match at Wimbledon since Jennifer Capriati in 1991. In the first round, she shocked her idol Venus Williams, who had already won 4 Grand Slams before Gauff was born. She went on to defeat Magdalena Rybarikova and Polona Hercog before losing to eventual champion Simona Halep in the fourth round. At only 15 years and 3 months old, she was also the youngest player to qualify for Wimbledon in the Open Era.
Since Wimbledon, Gauff has backed up her performance to say the least. She has since reached #49 in the world, and won her first WTA title at the Linz Open in 2019. At the 2020 Australian Open she reached the fourth round, beating defending champion Naomi Osaka on her way.
She has recently been signed by Roger Federer's prestigious agency, Team8.
Turned Professional: 2018
Prize Money: $803,530
Titles: 1
Image Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Coco_Gauff_at_2019_Wimbledon.jpg
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