The tennis year 2020 from… Cori Gauff
Cori Gauff won her first tournament on the WTA tour in Linz in 2019. In the season just ended, she made another leap forward.
by tennisnet.com
last edit: Dec 03, 2020, 08:59 pm
The fact that Cori Gauff will be an integral part of the future of the WTA can easily be seen in the course of the re-branding campaign for the women's tour. Ashleigh Barty is number one in the world, Naomi Osaka is probably the best player at the moment and Timea Babos and Kristina Mladenovic are a prominent double that has celebrated the greatest successes in recent years. And Cori Gauff. And that despite the fact that the still only 16-year-old American hibernates at position 48 on the WTA charts.
If you want to guess Gauff's potential, you just have to look at the Australian Open 2020: In round one, the teenager defeated old champion Venus Williams (as in Wimbledon 2019), after that Sorana Cirstea was no windfall either, until round three the big acid test came. The Gauff with 6: 3 and 6: 4 against defending champion Osaka passed brilliantly. The end in Melbourne came in the round of 16 against the eventual winner Sofia Kenin.
Gauff without luck
After the restart of the tour, Cori Gauff put on a semi-final in Lexington (loss to Jennifer Brady), and then had bad luck with the draw: In Cincinnati / New York, she had to face Maria Sakkari in round one the US Open against Anastasija Sevastova, who posed too great problems for the teenager with her varied approach to play.
Gauff in Rome and Roland Garros faced the competition on ashes. The bankruptcy against Garbine Muguruza in the Eternal City was not half as annoying as the one against Martina Trevisan in the second round of the French Open. The Italian qualifier did not have to be very active in this match, Gauff gave her opponent one mistake after another without need.
At the end of the season, Gauff in Ostrava was on the quarter-finals course after qualifying, but gave up a high lead in the third set against the eventual tournament winner Aryna Sabalenka.
Cori Gauff has done well statistically with breakballs: The conversion rate was 53.3 percent. As a server, she still has room for improvement: Despite her very good service, Gauff only won 68.8 percent of the points after the first serve. And so it remained with twelve wins in 20 appearances. And they were worth 509,862 US dollars in prize money.