Coco Gauff graces Vogue cover, talks perfectionism and drawing inspiration from Williams sisters

Coco Gauff, Cover Girl.

The top-ranked American kicks off her Sunshine Swing campaign by gracing the April cover of Vogue magazine—photographed by none other than Annie Leibovitz, who has shot everyone from Queen Elizabeth II to Whoopi Goldberg—and a sprawling feature story, in which the soon-to-be 20-year-old opens up about the whirlwind months that have followed her maiden major victory at the 2023 US Open.

“That was a feeling I’ll never be able to replicate no matter how many more matches I win,” she told writer Abby Aguirre in an interview held during the off-season. “I want to win more so I can get as close to the feeling.

“I told my mom—I literally said, ‘It was an addictive feeling.’ As soon as I felt that, I wanted to refeel it again. I said, ‘Now I see how people get addicted to drugs.’ That feeling was a drug. For the rest of my life, the rest of my career, I’m going to be chasing that high.”

The high that came from rallying from a set down to defeat Aryna Sabalenka in front of an enraptured Arthur Ashe Stadium hardly seemed possible even two months earlier, when Gauff was left soul-searching in the aftermath of a first-round Wimbledon exit.

Wimbledon had been where Gauff announced herself on the major stage at just 15 years old, stunning five-time champion Venus Williams en route to the second week in 2019.

“When I walked on the court, I put the music really loud in my ears because I didn’t want to look at, or hear, the crowd,” Gauff recalled of one of her tennis inspirations, who had once practiced on the same Pompey Park courts in Delray Beach where Gauff grew up. “A lot of times during that match I didn’t even look at the scoreboard because I didn’t want to see her name.”

Gauff never got the chance to play idol Serena Williams, who “evolved” away from tennis in 2022, but shaking regrets like that are part of a larger strategy, which Aguirre describes as “neutralizing [Gauff’s] perfectionism.”

“It’s a great thing and also a bad thing,” Gauff explains. “It’s not like I’m saying, ‘Good job, Coco.’ It’s like, ‘Okay, why didn’t you do that sooner?’”

Gauff’s mother Candi reveals her perfectionism streak goes as far back as her reaction to a first-grade spelling test.

“She was so fixated on the fact that she got one wrong,” she said. “To me that was too much of an upsetting moment for her to have.”

Since working with new coach Brad Gilbert, whom she hired shortly after Wimbledon, Gauff feels she’s found a balance to her perfectionism—one that has allowed her to at last unlock her best tennis.

“I’m trying to do more of, you know, accepting the good shots,” Gauff said, “and giving myself as much of a compliment as I do a critique.”

Now that she’s won on the hard courts of the US Open, Gauff, who is up to a career-high ranking of No. 3, feels the sky is the limit for 2024. She already broke new ground with career-best run at the Australian Open, reaching the semifinals.

“I really want to do well or win Roland Garros because I just felt like I was so close last time,” said Gauff, who reached her first major final on the terre battue in 2022. “Paris is my favorite city, so I do want to try to win there. That would be special. But obviously if it’s not Roland Garros, I’d be very happy to win Wimbledon or the US Open.”

Click here to read the full interview with Aguirre, and check out the photos shot by famed photographer Annie Leibovitz.