It is only 19-year-old Coco Gauff’s first final victory in the US Open, last year she reached the quarter-finals.
— I feel a bit like in shock right now. I’m so grateful, but to be honest, I don’t really have words for what I feel, says Gauff in the victory interview on the track after the match.
The teenager Gauff is ranked number six in the world and is seen as the heiress of the Williams sisters. When she hit the match ball, she threw herself straight onto the court, crying but immediately looked for her parents in the stands where Gauff’s mother was heard exclaiming: You did it!
The father cried
“It’s the first time I’ve seen my father cry,” says Gauff.
The decision came after Sabalenka won the first set 6–2 and Gauff the second 6–3. Then the teenage Gauff served out the third set 6–2 in a tiebreaker which she won cleanly in front of a jubilant home crowd at Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York.
When Sabalenka was interviewed after the match and was greeted by loud applause from the crowd, which had given her opponent the most support during the fight, she commented:
— What if you had supported me in this way during the match!
Incredible player
Coco Gauff had only good things to say about Sabalenka.
— She is an absolutely incredible player and I congratulate her on the first place in the ranking, it is well deserved, says Gauff, adding that she always speaks of the Belarusian as a very pleasant person and that the competitive instinct and the heat she brings to tennis make the sport better .