The two most elated spectators on Court One on Monday evening were also the least surprised. Corey and Candi Gauff had an inkling when their little girl was three that she was a bit different.
The setting was an athletics track in Atlanta, the city they called home before relocating the family to Florida when Cori was only seven for the betterment of her tennis career.
That day in Atlanta, Corey and Candi’s niece was doing a spot of junior training. What happened next stunned Cori’s mother so much that nothing, including that extraordinary win over Venus Williams, has caused quite the same degree of shock.
Coco Gauff shocked the world when she beat Venus Williams in the first round of Wimbledon
The 15-year-old American lit up Court One and secured a straight sets win over her idol
Her father, Corey, was all smiles from the players’ box after watching his daughter win
Taking up the story, Candi told Sportsmail: ‘She was in her stroller and just like that, she got out and because they were running around the track she went running off behind them.
‘She just kept on running and running and running to chase them. At first you are thinking, “hang on”, and then you are thinking, “Oh my, is she going to pass out?” but she just kept running and chasing.
‘In the end, she must have done at least three laps of a 400m track. Three years old. I knew then, you could see, there was something there. Who does that?’
It’s an amusing anecdote about a little girl who grew into the 15-year-old who grabbed the attention of the world with that win over Williams. It warrants repeating that the older woman by 24 years had won four singles Slams, including two at Wimbledon, by the time Cori, who goes by Coco, was born in March 2004.
In speaking to her parents, a picture emerges of heightened drive that is typical among prodigies, particularly in female tennis, which through Martina Hingis, Jennifer Capriati and Andrea Jaeger, among others, has previous for this sort of breakthrough. What is less common is the proliferation of interests from football to dance and gymnastics in the child, whose upbringing has drawn obvious parallels with the Williams sisters but was also more privileged.
Corey had coached sports for years prior to becoming Coco’s primary tennis trainer
Candi, pictured with Coco, wanted her to have opportunities to further her sporting career
Serena Williams was her idol growing up and here they are pictured together in 2016
Corey, a former basketball star at Georgia State University, had coached sports for years prior to becoming Coco’s primary tennis trainer and also owns the Paradise Sports Lounge bar in Delray Beach, Florida. Candi was a gymnast before competing in athletics at Florida State University, and then became a school teacher. Whereas the Williams’s came out of Compton and faced its notorious challenges, the Gauff’s were middle class.
On the subject of whether their daughter was channelled into tennis, Corey said: ‘I didn’t value the idea of playing tennis all day. I thought she’d get fatigued. I didn’t want to overdo it – I wanted to play other sports.’
Coco’s mother added: ‘Very early on she did soccer, a bit of gymnastics, track and field, some basketball, a bit of dance. But tennis always stood out for her and that is what she stayed with.
‘Both Corey and I were sporty which comes into it. I think the power comes from him and the athleticism comes from me.’
Once tennis became the focus at around seven years old, Serena Williams quickly became Gauff’s idol. Tellingly, on her bedroom wall in Florida are only two posters. ‘Serena was the big poster,’ said Candi. ‘She actually also has herself on the wall. It was a magazine cover from Delray Beach Magazine. They had her on the cover when she was 12, so she has that on the wall.’
Quite aside from her performance, Gauff caught attention on Monday with her remarkable confidence in expressing a desire to become the greatest to play the game. She claimed her father told her it was possible when she was eight, though Corey believes the seeds of the idea came at the age of six.
Corey and Candi Gauff look nervous before the start of their daughter’s match on Monday
Forbes reckoned she will make $1million this year and that was before the Williams win
He said: ‘We talk about the GOAT (Greatest of all time) all the time. She was six years old and I think I was watching the Australian Open. Serena won and they were saying she’s maybe one of the greatest of all time. To me and my basketball friends, we say Michael Jordan was the greatest of all time, or Kobe Bryant was the GOAT. As a little girl, she said “I want to be the GOAT”. So I never changed her mind. Parents talk you out of dreams sometimes.’
Corey remains his daughter’s main coach, though she does occasionally train at the academy of Serena Williams’s trainer, Patrick Mouratoglou. Corey Gauff said: ‘To be a dad and a coach is an incredibly hard balance. It’s one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done and I’m still learning. I try to be only positive.
‘We’ve had moments where I’ve fussed at her and she’s not a talk back, she would cry. The command style of coaching that I grew up with in the 80s, coach tells you to do something you do it. What I’ve learned in her teenage years that I’ve started to be more suggestive and let it be her decision.’
The results of the approach are paying off rapidly. She became the youngest US Open girls singles finalist aged just 13 and last year she won the French Open juniors at 14. She was already the youngest qualifier for Wimbledon’s main draw, and the fact she has endorsement deals with Head and New Balance after a bidding war between the latter and Nike. Forbes reckoned she will make $1million this year and that was before the Williams win.
Coco stayed up til 11pm the night before her final qualifier for Wimbledon to take an exam
Coco, left and right, recently spoke out about African-American history and violence in Sudan
She uses social media to reveal how she spends her down time, such as seeing Ariana Grande
The trade-off has seen her put in ‘Virtual School’ and distance-learning programmes. ‘She is good in school,’ her mother said. ‘She has done virtual school programme since the third grade (aged eight). We part taught her as well for a while. She had to take a test in science (during Wimbledon qualifiers) and the teachers didn’t really know she played tennis. I finally emailed the counsellor and she can email the rest of the teachers to give her a little break.’
The risk among the excitement, as ever, is that she might burnout among the expectations, which is a common and sad trait in tennis. But Candi said: ‘Off the court she has a great family – her grandparents, her two little brothers, my sister and brother, and everybody just treats her normal. He just have a good tight knit family.
‘Our job as a parent is to drive her whatever her dream is. She wants to be the best and one of our jobs is to make her the best. But she is grounded.’
For now she is flying.