American tennis phenom Coco Gauff recently won her first doubles Grand Slam title at the 2024 Roland Garros tournament, and later revealed how close she was to giving up doubles prior to the event.
Gauff teamed with doubles specialist and multi-Grand Slam doubles title winner Katerina Siniakova to defeat the formidable Italian pairing of Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini in Sunday’s final. This would be Gauff’s first doubles Grand Slam title, after finishing runner-up at the 2021 US Open and 2022 French Open.
Most singles players rarely participate in doubles, with Gauff being one of the few top singles stars who is proficient at both. However, the 20-year-old admitted she had considered quitting doubles after losing two doubles finals in order to focus solely on a singles career.
“Yeah doubles, I definitely didn’t think it would happen to me to be frank,” said Gauff. “I think that was like one of the few times in my life after I lost the first two finals I was like okay well you know I reached to that point maybe I should focus on singles.
“But yeah I think it’s just one of those things that just, when you least expect it to happen it happens. Same thing in the US Open. When I won, I didn’t expect to win. I was having a really bad year and then here I didn’t even expect to play. So I think it’s funny how life teaches you those lessons, that sometimes it’s better just to be relaxed and good things will happen.”
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