Jessica Pegra speaks all about the WTA and American women’s tennis
Jessica Pegula is ahead of a public French lecture on American tennis and partnership with World of Hyatt.
Seriously sports
Don’t let Coco Gouf have a sense of victory. Don’t fall into a situation where the game becomes more than tennis. Don’t open the door at all for her to knock down.
If you’re on the other side of the net for this special 21 year old from Atlanta via Delray Beach, Florida and have a big trophy on the line, then there may not be anybody mentally tough or better prepared for the ugly of a real fight.
Gouf won her second Grand Slam single title in her favorite tournament on Saturday, beating No. 1 Alina Sabalenka 6-7, 6-2, 6-4, bringing home the French open title she’d long hoped for. And Goff earned it the only way she could have: with her heart, her desires, her stability and her dirty willing to descend in the red clay of Roland Garros.
It is the surface that rewards all the qualities that Gouf brings to the table, and on a windy day in Paris she did her best. She dragged the Grand Slam final into the mud, making it a test of attrition and patience, and came out on the other side with some stripes clay On the big silver trophy on her back and her arms.
Last year of women’s tennis was primarily about Sabalenka’s evolution into a complete player and the otherworldly power of her strokes. But what about this match? It wasn’t just forehands and backhands. If that were the case, Gauff probably wouldn’t have won.
Instead, it was about all intangible assets. I handled my nerves, maintained my emotional energy, moved on from my mistakes, and accepted that gusts of wind and drops of rain would make tennis less perfect.
In fact, it was ugly for most of the match.
And that’s how Gouf likes it.
“To be honest, I didn’t think I could do that,” she said at the trophy ceremony. “But I’m going to quote Creator Tyler who said, ‘If I said I had doubts within myself, I must be lying.” I think I was lying to myself and I was definitely able to do it. ”
The toughest tennis players to beat are those who accept that they don’t have to be perfect. They just need to be a little better than the person on the other side of the net. Understanding it and doing it, along with Goff’s highest singular quality, the elite’s defensive speed to keep the points alive, and a complete commitment to coming up with a product to your opponent.
It’s what often saves her when the forehand breaks down, the second serve becomes unstable and she looks like a hanging thread.
“She’s incredible,” her father, Corey Gough, told TNT. “It’s her best quality. She never gives up, regardless of the scoreline. It looked pretty dark on the first set and we continued to pull it together and fight.”
Certainly, Sabalenka’s onslaught came early. She led 4-1, 40 Love, and it looked like the first set was gone. But Gouf mentally refused to admit it, rewind it evenly, and actually blew away the opportunity to pull it out with a tiebreaker.
If you put that effort into it, many players will be broken. It’s not Goff.
The longer the match, the longer the points, and the wind blowing, the more I felt Sabalenka’s discomfort and frustration grow. At the same time, we could see Gouf’s inner calm win. It started to look like the 2023 US Open Final when Gauff emotionally exploded Sabalenka with a 2-6, 6-3, 6-2 victory over Sabalenka.
This time Sabalenka didn’t handle it well. As Goff scrambled to keep the points alive, Sabalenka put pressure on them to finish them – often pulling her brain and her body into a cycle of self-destructive mistakes, then continuing her frustration, leading to more mistakes. Finally, an unforced error count told the story: Sabalenka 70, Gauff 30. A more stable player won that day.
Sabalenka’s sentiment came out all the wrong way, not just in the courtroom, but also in the trophy ceremony, which issued half an apology for “bad tennis” and “bad condition.”
Sorry, but that’s how sports work and what makes them captivate us infinitely. If everything is perfect, Sabalenka is a better tennis player than Gauff. But the true mark of tennis’ greatness is accepting that every day poses a different challenge from Mother Nature and is able to adapt to the reality that you face.
Even with two Grand Slam titles at such a young age, Goff still has much growth to pursue what he can do with tennis balls. But if she can reach this stage in a big tournament, then when the mental aspects often become as important as the physical ones, Gouf has once again proven that she is a giant.
