"Definitely a transition happening": Playing with less pressure, Coco Gauff aims to keep teenage surge going

A new, more chilled attitude helped Coco Gauff reach her first Grand Slam final at the French Open final—and she wants to keep it going into Wimbledon.

It sounds very different from the way she reacted to her breakthrough as a 15-year-old in 2019, when she defeated Venus Williams on Centre Court. That is something she would now change.

"I would say, ‘You’re crazy, you’re putting so much pressure on yourself’," Gauff told the Daily Telegraph.

Gauff went on to play Naomi Osaka in the third round of the US Open, a memorable encounter where Gauff was in tears following a two-set defeat and, at Osaka's invitation, both players gave post-match interviews to the crowd.

Speaking to the Telegraph, she revealed she had gone into the tournament with the mentality that she should win the title.

"It’s that I expected to," she said. "The Naomi match, now I look back at it, I’d say there was no chance that girl would beat her."

But since her high-school graduation before the start of the French Open, she says, that pressure has lifted.

"And I definitely played like that in Paris," she said.

Gauff also has plenty of inspiration, part of a rising group of young players now having an increasing impact at Grand Slams, such as Iga Swiatek, who defeated Gauff in Paris, along with Emma Raducanu and Leylah Fernandez.

"It’s definitely a transition happening," said Gauff, who likes having more players she knows from the juniors and "always root[s] for Iga, Emma or Leylah when I’m not playing them."

Gauff is No. 12 in the rankings.