Coco Gauff Is Ready For Greatness, On Her Own Terms

COCO GAUFF IS at a crossroads. She’s sitting in the passenger seat of her first car while her dad, Corey, studies the computer in its dash. Radio off. Windows up. Air conditioning on.

“This was my birthday present,” Coco, who turned 18 in March, says of the black Audi e-tron she’s never driven. “Usually, I hook my phone up in the car, but my dad uses the regular radio, like satellite radio.”

“I’m so old-fashioned,” Corey says.

Corey readjusts the driver’s seat, turns right out of their gated community and crosses the Florida turnpike. He also hasn’t driven this car since he purchased it four months ago. He and Coco, the No. 12 women’s tennis player in the world, haven’t been home much.

There was the Stuttgart Open in April. Madrid and Italy in May. The French Open in June. Wimbledon last week. This two-week stretch in mid-July is the longest they’ve been in Delray Beach all year.

Coco didn’t want a car. She deferred when Corey offered to buy her one for her Sweet 16, then again on her 17th birthday. She also doesn’t want to take her driving test, so she’s still operating on a learner’s permit. “I don’t like driving,” Coco says. Besides, she has Grubhub when she’s feeling Chick-fil-A, and Mom and Dad when she wants to take her younger brothers to see the new Minions movie and go bowling like she did Friday night. “I really don’t need a car,” she says.

Dad gave her one anyway. “He’s tired of driving me everywhere,” she says.

Today, Dad is driving her around Delray, passing through some of the landmarks of her childhood. It’s been only three years since Coco erupted onto the tennis scene with a win over one of her idols, Venus Williams, and it’s clear she’s not about to give up all the comforts of that childhood: post-practice conversations in the car with her mom and dad, crosstown commutes with her grandma and grandpa. But now at 18, she is ready to reach for greatness — and her first Grand Slam title — on her terms. So as Serena Williams, the player she has modeled her career after, leaves the game, Coco is stepping into the spotlight and growing into the player and person she wants to become.

“It says 42 miles ’til I need to charge it,” Coco says after glancing at the mileage display. “We haven’t charged it since we took it off the dealership. I hope one of us remembers how to do it.”

Alyssa Roenigk

ESPN

https://www.espn.com/tennis/story/_/id/34424448/coco-gauff-ready-greatness-own-terms