Coco Gauff's milestone teenage moments: the 8th grader saves 9 match points in US Open junior final

This year, for Black History Month, we’re focusing on a young African-American who has already made her share of tennis history. In her six years as a pro, Coco Gauff has grabbed the Grand Slam-winning baton from Venus and Serena Williams, while also continuing Arthur Ashe’s commitment to racial justice.

With Gauff’s 20th birthday coming up in March, we’re spending this week looking at five milestone moments from her teens.

2017: Makes the final of the US Open girls’ event—as an eighth-grader

Sometimes you learn more about a player from how they lose a match than you do from how they win one.

That’s how Gauff first came to the attention of many tennis fans—with a valiant effort in defeat. The year was 2017, and she had reached the US Open girls’ final. She was 13, she had just started eighth grade, and she playing in her first-ever junior Grand Slam event. Yet she sailed through to the final without dropping a set.

Her appearance in the title match felt symbolic: The 2017 US Open had begun with remembrances of Venus Williams’ groundbreaking run to the women’s final 20 years earlier, and it ended with another African-American woman, Sloane Stephens, holding up the champion’s trophy. With Gauff’s sudden rise, Williams and Stephens had a successor, and African-American women’s tennis had become a winning tradition of its own.

First, though, Gauff had to face a reality check. Amanda Anisimova, three years older and many times more powerful, was too much for her countrywoman in the final. Anisimova won the first set, 6-0, in 21 minutes, and raced to a 5-2, 40-0 lead in the second. On that day, many of Gauff’s first serves failed to break the 80-m.p.h. mark, and she was overmatched from the forehand side.

But it was when she was down triple match point that we started to see Gauff’s best asset: Her fight. Her serve and forehand may have needed work, but not her heart.

Gauff saved a couple of match points when Anisimova tightened up and missed. On the second one, Gauff let out a “Come on!” to make sure that everyone, including herself, knew she was still in this.

She saved a couple more match points by upping the m.p.h.s on her serve from 80 to 100. She saved another by firing a backhand that landed on the baseline for a winner; there wasn’t a hint of hesitation in her swing.

“She’s still in this fight, that’s the crazy thing!” an astonished Luke Jensen said in the commentary booth.

Gauff would save nine championship points before Anisimova finally hit a forehand she couldn’t handle. While Anisimova was lauded for her victory, Gauff’s goal-line stand became a news story of its own. The world had learned what her parents, Corey and Candi, had always known.

“She has this uncanny determination,” Corey said.

When Coco was 3 or 4 years old, Corey told the South Florida Sun Sentinel, she raced around a track with her older cousins. She couldn’t keep up, but “she wouldn’t stop and she kept running, and she was crying because she couldn’t catch them.”

“I’m like, ‘Man, this is gonna be interesting. She’s got some kind of determination.’”

In the seven years since Gauff’s defeat to Anisimova, we’ve seen how far that determination has taken her. In 2023, when she reached another US Open final—the adult version—she again lost the first set to a more powerful opponent, Aryna Sabalenka. But Coco seemed to have learned from her junior defeat: This time she started her comeback a little earlier, and went on to win.

Coming Tuesday: Gauff beats one of her idols