Title of the French Open of Coco Gauff and a trip to unknown tennis

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Roland Garros, Paris – When this happens twice, it is not an accident. Coco Gauff is on the way.

Almost two years after his revolutionary victory at US 2023 US Open, Gauff organized a moving return against the world n ° 1 Aryna Sabalenka to the French OpenTo capture its second title of Grand Chelem 6-7 (5), 6-2, 6-4.

After two hours and 38 minutes of trend and greenhouse, often disorderly but sometimes breathtakingly breathtaking one of the great athletes on the planet, Gauff looked at a last Ballon by Sabalenka flying off the field. She collapsed on the clay and rolled on her face first in red dirt.

She deprived her mouth with her hand by disbelief. She looked at her parentsHis father pumping his fist into the air; His mother jumping from joy.

There was a hug for Sabalenka, who had made his way to the side of Gauff du net, and another for Spike Lee, the director seated in the front row, one of the dozens of celebrities who had come to Paris for that, because this is what happens when Gauff plays in a match of this magnitude.

And then came the joyful to walk in the stands to find her parents and the rest of the crew. To find the people who had released her dark moments last year, when she had to face the fact that what happened during a September evening in New York could never happen again.

Gauff’s victory was for all those who have already looked in the mirror and estimated that they are retreating, not forward; that what led them to early success no longer works; It playing a long game, late at first, can make all the difference to move forward.

It was also a victory for all those who have already fought to keep their cool when things are not going on, when the errors arrive hard and quickly, when the conditions attached to a dream are not the ones they wanted. This is what Gauff did during a windy and wild day in Paris, as Sabalenka did the opposite. The world n ° 1 has come unlucky, shouting to its coaches. Then she announced to the world that Gauff had not won because she had played well, but because Sabalenka had played terribly.

All of this was almost a year in manufacturing and anything but guaranteed. The change, in particular the necessary GAUFF type, has a lot of risks. But the biggest risk was trying to try something new, even if you are trying something new involving completely redoing the two most important photos of tennis while trying to stay at the top of sport.

Last September, a little less than a year after his first big triumph, Gauff sat in a media room after hit 19 double faults and missing countless front strokes in a Fourth round defeat against Emma Navarro. The rest of the WTA tour knew then that if they stayed with it, put pressure on its service and attacked its forehand, at one point, the house of the cards would collapse.

“I don’t want to lose games like this anymore,” she said.

Nine months later, thanks to a few long periods of doubt, she has a second Grand Chelem trophy for her parents to store at home in Florida.

“I didn’t think I could do it,” she said in the center of the Philippe-Chatrier court during the trophy ceremony.

Friday evening, in her hotel room, trying to make herself believe, she wrote again and again: “I will be the champion of the French Open 2025.” Gabby Thomas, a 200 -meter Olympic Sprint gold medalist, had made its version for the Paris Games last summer.

“I just looked at myself in the mirror and I said to myself, trying to put it in my brain, so I had this belief,” said Gauff.

How she did this implies the rarest in innate athletic capacity, but also certain even rarer qualities in a person as young as Gauff. An honesty on whom she is as a tennis player and no one. The desire to see how good she could be good, even if she has already made enough money and renown to live without ever supporting another session of weight or track in her life.

Even before winning the US 2023 open, Gauff was much more than a tennis player. It is an avatar for a certain type of world, Tiktok-InjectionGen-Z feminine witch. The first Grand Grand Chelem has increased his stature increased tenfold, landing him on the blanket of Vogue and the red carpet with the Oscars. She is the best -paid female athlete in the world.

This is not what it’s Gauff in this area. So she plunged head down in the unknown.

Out became the big name coach Brad Gilbert, who had helped her to go to this title of young slam in 2023. Came virtual named Matt Daly, who, with his longtime coach, Jean -Christophe Faurel, convinced that she was capable of great things – if she kissed the change.

How radical? And Change the way she holds her racket when she servesEven if she has done so in a way for a decade? How about looking at his forehand and seizing the initiative, instead of leaning back and resorting to the defense too often. A metaphor if there was one, because it has always been more than tennis for Gauff, an American black athlete trying, in his words, “use his racket to change the world”.

“There’s a lot of things in our country at the moment,” said Gauff during her post-match press conference, the Silver Shiny trophy next to her. She was there to represent people who resemble her: “Who may not feel so supported during this period, and therefore be this reflection of hope and light.”

Last fall, at the start of all these changes, he seemed to have the opportunity to do so could take some time. Four months, maybe six. Maybe more.

But, finally, the service was going to be more assured and it was going to be able to make its way around the field because it had never had the best players in the world, being the aggressor rather than the counterpouner, if it was the time required.

Very quickly, Gauff was everything. She is not doing much halfway, and she did not do it on Saturday, on the field or outside, even if it was a match in which she had to live in the role of supporting the actor against Sabalenka’s desire to play at first stroke of The Off.

She had already won a big home, but she said that it was more difficult. Between the two, she had five other shots in a second, and the closest she had come was two semi-finals. She didn’t want to be a wonder, and she really wanted this title. With its speed, endurance and your desire to fight The attrition wars that red clay may requireShe had heard for years that this tournament offered her one of her best shots in a major.

“I had the impression that if I crossed my career and that I did not get at least one, I would feel regrets,” she said.

She had already had a lot. Before facing Iga świątek in the 2022 Open final, she cried, because she was so nervous. She had a hard time breathing. She knew she had lost even before she struck the first ball. Świątek overthrew it and continued to dominate this tournament as few did – until this year, when Sabalenka, under the roof, has proven a whole.

On Saturday, Gauff said that she felt ready to leave her heart and her lungs on the ground, and whatever the result, she could leave proud.

Gauff was late at the start of the first set, but climbed back while Sabalenka’s mistakes were riding, and she became more confident than she could pass the ball in front of her when she needed it. She also started to summarize the dazzling yields of Sabalenka, looking more and more to spin in the net. She started reading drops of drop and loving net battles.

However, she found herself at the short end of a first 77 -minute set when Sabalenka caught the last three points of an equality break. It would be as good as for Sabalenka. Gauff sat on his chair and said he was withdrawing the pressure from the match. Losing would not be the end of the world. She hates losing, but it happens. She would come home, she would see her boyfriend, she would reset.

“I was able to relax after that and play a little more free,” she said.

By altering the storm of Sabalenka but losing the set, she also forced her opponent to confront her own discomfort. A 6-1 or 6-2 eruption and Sabalenka, which was less able to cope with the intangible assets of the wind and time that Gauff, would have been relaxed. The version in which she was drawn sent her to a spiral from which she could not recover.

Gauff kissed Sabalenka’s descent from a first strike machine with a deadly drop shot in a player swinging from one side to the other, trying anything to keep Gauff unbalanced but, in doing so, sending the American in the defense dance side by side that she can do better and any longer than anyone in the world. Gauff applied just enough pressure to leave the wind and Sabalenka brain do the work.

When it was finished, Sabalenka’s mind was always a jumble, saying that a supernatural force had sent the ball after the GAUFF racket tank in the corners of the courtyard, “as someone from above was to laugh, like:” Let’s see if you can manage this. “”.

The person asking her if he could manage this was actually on the other side of the net.

Gauff knew that it had been a decade that her inspiration, Serena Williams – or any other American – had won this title. Williams helped her dream that she could one day do it.

With 15,000 people in the stadium singing her name as the victory was getting closer, she had the chance to do it for someone else, “to represent the Americans who look like me and people who support the things I support”.

Nine months after the start of her trip to the unknown, she discovered what it was for. Basically, she had always known.

(Top Photo: Dante Badano / Sipa via Imagn Images)