By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Monday May 30, 2022
Coco Gauff is into the quarter-finals at Roland-Garros for the second time in two years, and the 18-year-old American is hoping that she can make 2022 different from last year, when she was defeated by eventual champion Barbora Krejcikova in the last eight.
The World No.23 is proving to be an exceptional clay-courter. She owns a record of 25-9 on the surface over the course of her career, with six Top-20 and two Top-10 wins.
If anything held Gauff back last year at Roland-Garros, it was her relative inexperience. That’s something she believes she can change this year by simply being more calm.
“To be honest, you're never going to play your best tennis in a slam every moment of the match, but I think I'm getting better and better, and I think mentally I can't ask for much more from myself in each match,” she said after defeating Elise Mertens in the round of 16 on Court Suzanne-Lenglen.
“I mean, you know, today in the first set I had a lot of points that I probably should have closed out, and made some errors on balls that I probably shouldn't have,” Gauff said. “I just stayed in it. I didn't not trust myself because I started to make those shots in the second set.”
Gauff, who faces Sloane Stephens in the round of 16, believes she is on the right track.
“I think just keep doing what I'm doing and not freaking out in those moments,” she said. “I think that was the biggest lesson I learned last year in my quarterfinal match, I had a couple set points and I think I freaked out when some of those points didn't go my way.
“Today I didn't freak out when a couple of those important points didn't go my way.”
There are no top-10 seeds remaining in Gauff’s half of the draw, but the American says that fact doesn’t affect her thinking. She enters every tournament believing there will be opportunities for her these days.
“I obviously noticed that some of the players that were higher seed dropped out, but I think whereas last year I feel like I was thinking like if I could have got through that quarterfinal maybe I could have won the tournament because I saw the other side was opening up, and this time coming in I'm not thinking about it like that,” she said. “I'm thinking, especially if US Open taught us anything, anybody can win on any day. I think all players should really going into the match thinking about that.”