THE CHAMPIONSHIPS

June 30, 2022

Coco Gauff

Press Conference

C. GAUFF/M. Buzarnescu

6-2, 6-3

THE MODERATOR: Coco, your feelings on tonight's match.

COCO GAUFF: Yeah, I thought tonight's match went great. I have no complaints. She's not an easy player to play. I think grass is her best surface. Coming in, I don't know, I was trying to just hit big early, and if I miss I would be okay with it.

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. A little bit of a different question. You've been around now for a few years, have faced many different opponents. If you had to take one stroke at a time, like who has the best serve who is active in the game?

COCO GAUFF: In women's tennis?

Q. Women's tennis.

COCO GAUFF: Serve-wise, other than me, I feel like my serve is a good serve that I think somebody might want to have. Other than that, obviously Serena. She has one of the best serves. I modeled my serve after her. Yeah, I would take her serve.

Q. Forehand?

COCO GAUFF: Forehand? I'm going with Serena again.

Q. Backhand?

COCO GAUFF: I love my backhand, so I'm going to go with me (smiling).

Q. Return of serve?

COCO GAUFF: Serena again. I mean, she's, yeah, everything I modeled after.

Q. Volleys?

COCO GAUFF: Okay, volleys, that's a different one. Whose volleys I would take on tour? You know who has really good reflexes, Demi Schuurs. Playing her in doubles, she has really good reflexes. I'll take her volleys.

Q. Speed and anticipation?

COCO GAUFF: Me (laughter).

Q. And finally, mental toughness or fight?

COCO GAUFF: Me and Serena. I'm sorry, but she does it all.

Q. I saw in your Instagram story your brother had a pretty big accomplishment.

COCO GAUFF: Yes.

Q. How did it feel to be afar and the celebration with your family?

COCO GAUFF: Yeah, his team won the PG National World Series, which is pretty impressive. Especially he had to play three games that day, and he's a catcher. He caught all three that day pretty much. He got hit by a pitch, had like shoulder problems.

My grandfather asked the coach to take him out of the game. When they were down 3-0 in the seventh inning, with two outs, in baseball terms, to turn that into tennis, it's basically being down, like, 5-2, two or three match points, basically the same thing. I was watching it live.

I'm not going to lie. I was like, Oh, they lost. I should know better not to count my brother out. They ended up winning. We were in a restaurant watching. I get so nervous watching him play.

I'm pretty proud of him and his team. To catch three games, that's pretty physical. The fact that the coach put him back in the game even though he was hurt shows how much trust the coach has in my brother. Yeah, super proud of him and his team.

Q. Did you get to talk to him before these games happened? The fighting spirit, does he get it from you?

COCO GAUFF: I would say it's something that he always had. I think for me, I have a confidence about myself and I know, like, I'm good at my game and stuff.

I feel like my brother, I don't know, I mean, it's tough. Even though we're playing two completely different sports, people compare us, which sucks for me, because I can never do what he can do and he can never do what I can do.

It's something I've been trying to tell him to get. He's good. Yeah, he's good. He's top five catcher in the country. I have to tell him, Act like you're good on the court, be a leader in the team. This game, I was a little emotional because I was watching live stream, I saw him calm down the pitcher. He's starting to become a leader. I can see that he's starting to believe himself that he's good. I think he should own it.

Q. About the fighting spirit, earlier today Nadal was praising your fighting spirit and he also said you'd eventually be a multi-Grand Slam champion.

COCO GAUFF: That's cool (smiling). They told me the first part. I didn't hear about the second part. But that's cool.

Q. What does hearing that kind of thing from a player like Nadal mean to you and how do you take that?

COCO GAUFF: It means a lot to me. I mean, Rafa's one of the greats, if not the greatest, of our sport right now.

Yeah, I see him all the time in the players area. He's really nice. I always get intimidated by him just 'cause he's Rafa. I remember at French Open, he, like, patted me on the back and said, Good job. I remember responding so late, he was already down the hallway, and I said, Thank you, because I was so shocked he actually said that to me.

He's one of these players. We see these players all the time, we see each other every week, but he's one of the those players on tour that you get star-strucked every time. Same with Nole, Roger. Even Serena and Venus to this day, I still get starstruck.

Hearing that from him is pretty cool and I hope I can live up to that.

Q. Could you speak to being able to play on less predictable surfaces like grass and clay.

COCO GAUFF: Honestly, I would say growing up I didn't expect myself to be, like, as comfortable as I am on the grass and the clay. Playing on hard court all the time, hard is still my favorite surface because you know what you're going to get every single time.

Playing an unpredictable surface, I really credit a lot is my speed and my ability to be able to react and adjust. I think that's what you need on these surfaces. I think for the most part I do pretty well at that.

Yeah, I mean, it's crazy. Clay and grass are completely different surfaces. It's cool to have good results on both of them. My ultimate goal is to hold the trophy on all the surfaces would be the best thing ever.

Q. Talk about your comfort here. Is there a home-court advantage?

COCO GAUFF: For sure on Centre Court I felt like today I was definitely comfortable on the court. I think today was the first time I walked on the court and really wasn't nervous at all. I don't know if it was because I had the tough match first round, obviously I got through that. Whatever happens happens. I don't know, just playing on the court a couple times. I don't know really.

I knew the night before I went to sleep, I was like, You're going to be nervous on Centre Court when the schedule came out.

But I wasn't. It's a little bit of a home-court advantage. I do feel like it's a home court for me. Majority of the time when I'm playing on that court, I would say the majority of the crowd is with me. I remember my first time playing on Centre Court. I was super nervous. I always talk about the walk, I didn't know what to expect about that walk.

Playing someone who probably played on it once or twice or maybe not at all, you definitely feel a little bit home-court advantage. I know, speaking to the other players who have played on that court many times, I think they would all agree they feel at least 20% more confident than when they're playing someone who never played on Centre Court before. It definitely is a big difference.