Tennis-Gauff ready to turn Wimbledon nightmare into a dream
Tennis - Wimbledon - All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, London, Britain - July 1, 2024 Coco Gauff of the U.S. celebrates after winning her first round match against Caroline Dolehide of the U.S. REUTERS/Hannah Mckay
By Pritha Sarkar
LONDON (Reuters) -For Coco Gauff, Wimbledon is the place of dreams and nightmares.
It was the place where on July 1, 2019, the then 15-year-old school student took a break from her exams to cause one of the biggest shocks in tennis by toppling her idol and five-time Wimbledon champion Venus Williams in the first round.
Anyone lucky enough to have a ringside seat that day knew that the precocious teenager was armed with the weapons, and the mindset, to go all the way at the grasscourt major and predicted that it would be only a matter of time before she would be holding aloft the most famous trophy in women's tennis.
However, four years after Wimbledon went Coco-crazy, Gauff found herself in "a dark place" and questioned her own future in the sport after she was jettisoned out of the All England Club in the first-round by an American qualifier ranked 128th in the world.
Thankfully for Gauff, what at the time appeared to be the nadir of her career ended up being the making of her as she went on to win her maiden Grand Slam title at the U.S. Open just two months later and reached the semi-finals at this season's first two majors.
Knowing that things "couldn't get any worse" at Wimbledon than last year, Gauff was simply unstoppable on Monday as she walloped fellow American Caroline Dolehide 6-1 6-2 to banish her demons.
"Playing freely, it just feels fun. You feel like no matter what you do, it's going to be right. That's what I felt like today," the 20-year-old told reporters.
"I was very nervous going into today. Obviously there's some times when you do bad at a tournament, you let those same feelings creep in. Last year I lost in the first round and it was very tough for me."
Gauff produced a stream of irresistible winners to bamboozle the 51st-ranked Dolehide and dropped only one point on serve during a formidable first-set performance.
Such was her confidence she conjured an incredible crosscourt lob into the far corner which she greeted with a one-armed salute, while the Centre Court crowd jumped to their feet to roar their approval.
The world number two kept up the barrage of sizzling winners in the second set and despite overcooking a forehand on her first match point, she made no mistake on her second and will be determined to improve on her two fourth round showings over the next fortnight.
"Wimbledon is the place - not where the dream started, but where I believed that the dream was possible. I've played on a lot of big courts but every time I play here I feel even more nervous - even more than in a grand slam final," she said.
"There is something about Centre Court that’s so special. I don't know how many more times I'll get the chance to play on this special court. Hopefully many more times."
(Reporting by Pritha Sarkar, Editing by Ed Osmond and Alison Williams)