Gauff climbs to 71 after maiden win
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American prodigy Cori “Coco” Gauff continued her rise up the ranks of women’s tennis yesterday when the WTA rankings showed a climb of 39 places to No. 71 in the world.
Gauff started last week in Linz at 110 and was originally set for an early departure from Austria after losing in the qualifying rounds before grabbing a lifeline as a lucky loser.
She went on to beat 2017 Roland Garros winner Jelena Ostapenko in the final for her maiden title.
It marks a meteoric rise for the young American — at the end of 2018, she was 686 in the world.
Last week’s run, which included a victory over Kiki Bertens for her initial top-10 win, was the latest impressive performance for Gauff.
She was just 313th when Wimbledon began on July 1. That’s where she really burst onto the scene as the youngest qualifier in tournament history, then beat compatriot and five-time champion Venus Williams along the way to making it all the way to the fourth round.
Gauff claimed her first WTA doubles title at Washington in August, pairing with Caty McNally, before getting to the third round in singles at the US Open.
Gauff is now the youngest woman to win a WTA singles championship since Czech Nicole Vaidisova earned two by the age of 15 years, 5 months in 2004.
Another good performance in Luxembourg this week could see Gauff knocking on the door of the top 50.
There was no movement in the top 20 with Australia’s Ashleigh Barty retaining the No. 1 spot for another week.
Meanwhile, Roger Federer announced yesterday that he will compete at next year’s Tokyo Olympics in a bid to claim the men’s singles gold medal, the only major prize he has yet to win.
“I’ve been debating with my team for a few weeks now, months actually, what I should do in the summer time (of 2020) after Wimbledon and before the US Open,” he said at a promotional event.
“At the end of the day my heart decided to play the Olympic Games again.”
Federer, 38, has won all four of the Grand Slam tournaments, as well as the ATP Tour Finals six times, but is still waiting to grab Olympic singles gold.
The 20-time Grand Slam champion did win a doubles gold alongside fellow Swiss Stan Wawrinka at Beijing in 2008, but when he got to the London singles final in 2012 he was hammered 2-6, 1-6, 4-6 by an inspired Andy Murray.
Federer did not compete at Rio 2016, where Briton Murray won again, but has since twice won the Australian Open and took the 2017 Wimbledon title before losing an epic final in the grasscourt Grand Slam to Novak Djokovic earlier this year.
Serbia’s Djokovic, 32, and Federer’s eternal rival Rafael Nadal, 33, have both already said they will compete at Tokyo, the trio setting the scene for a highly competitive tournament.
Nobody will be writing the aging triumvirate off.
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