Coco Gauff is only 19 but has already achieved so much in her young career to emerge as the brightest teenager of her generation.
Gauff defeated Ukraine's Marta Kostyuk 7-6, 6-7, 6-2 in her sternest test of this year's Australian Open so far. The match lasted the full three hours, with Gauff requiring to display her resilience and extraordinary athleticism when staring at a deficit.
She stormed back from 1-5 down in the first set and saved two set points to take the first set tiebreak 8-6. Kostyuk did not wilt and managed to make the contest out of it in the second set when she was the one to claw her way into the matches.
Gauff was foiled in her attempt to serve for the match at 5-3 up, and Kostyuk pinched the second set in a tiebreak. But the American phenom ultimately had the extra power and energy in her reservoir to win the match down the stretch.
While the match was highly competitive, both players combined for a grand total of 107 unforced errors. Gauff will also demand improvement in her winners count, having tallied just 17, which was strikingly lower than Kostyuk's total of 39.
But at this stage of a Grand Slam, the most important component in the stats sheet is how many sets she wins. A first Australian Open semifinal is new ground for Gauff, who had never scaled the round of 16 stage before this.
She is now on a 12-match winning streak in Grand Slams, winning the 2023 US Open last September and five matches Down Under. Additionally, Gauff is now the second teenager this century to win 12 or more consecutive Grand Slam matches.
The only WTA player who fared better as a teenager then was former World No. 1 Maria Sharapova, who won 13 straight matches between the 2006 US Open and the 2007 Australian Open. The Russian was eventually beaten by Gauff's idol, Serena Williams, in the final in Melbourne.
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