Everyone felt awful because Coco Gauff felt awful. That’s what her past couple of weeks meant. Her tears became everyone’s tears Saturday at the French Open.
Her parents were crying. Her fans were crying. Mary Carillo said she began crying in the NBC broadcast booth, and partner John McEnroe said it got to him before he stiff-upper-lipped it by saying Gauff would be back in these situations, “Many, many times and win.”
This was just after Gauff, the 18-year-old from Delray Beach, lost in the tournament finals to the new power in women’s tennis, Iga Swiatek, 6-1, 6-3. The French crowd, seeing Gauff struggle, tried to boost her with the kind of ovation that said thanks, godspeed and not so much au revoir as in goodbye but in the literal, “to the seeing you again.”
“This is the first time for me,” Gauff said, taking the microphone on the stage afterward to give a speech in Roland Garros Stadium. “So I’ll try to get through this.”
This was one final lesson for her this tournament. She began her French Open posing in cap and gown in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris with her high school diploma.
“I did it!” she wrote on Instagram.
That probably beat your high school graduation pose. It sure beat mine at a school on the edge of a cornfield. But Gauff’s past two weeks were a series of such I-did-it moments.
She was the second-youngest player in the 128-woman field at the French Open. She became the youngest woman to reach a major singles finals since 17-year-old Maria Sharapova in 2004.
But as in any young education there are teachers and there are students. For all Gauff’s wonderful play this tournament, it was clear Swiatek was the teacher Saturday, dominating Gauff in the manner she has all of tennis of late.
Swiatek broke Gauff’s serve in the opening game. She faltered slightly to start the second set as Gauff broke for a 2-0 lead. But Swiatek won the next five games that it was all over but the speeches. And tears.
“When I was your age, my first year on tour, I had no idea what I was doing,” Swiatek said to Gauff on the stage afterward. “You will find it, and you will be there. I’m pretty sure of that.”
It’s not like Swiatek is fighting Mother Time. She turned 21 this past week. This was her sixth consecutive tournament win. She’s won 35 straight matches, tying Venus Williams as the longest to do it since 2000.
But there’s another fight with age athletes must overcome and that’s the one Swiatek referred to with Gauff. Call it Baby Time. It’s the steps needed to grow as a player and grow up as a person to have a chance of winning.
Gauff has pushed Baby Time since making the French quarterfinals at 15 in 2019. Her career has progressed, up and down, from there until she was the 18th seed at this tournament.
Her play surprised even herself. She didn’t lose a set until Saturday. She found her way right into Saturday’s final. Along the way, she also showed she’s finding her voice, something every high school graduate needs.
“Peace,” she wrote on a television camera lens after one match in the manner tennis players do. “End gun violence.”
She comes by her activist roots naturally. Her grandmother, Yvonne Odom, was the first Black student to integrate Seacrest High School (now Atlantic High) in 1961.
Swiatek, who is Polish, had her own statement beyond tennis. She wore a blue and yellow ribbon for Ukraine on her hat while playing. “Stay strong, because the world is still there,” she said to them Saturday.
“Victory belongs to the most tenacious,” reads the sign at Roland Garros Stadium.
Sometimes it does. Other times victory just belongs to the better, more experienced player. That was Swiatek on Saturday. But tomorrow is waiting for Gauff. The way she carries herself, the manner she plays — and the way people shared her tears Saturday — say she can be a great champion.
