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Credit: ABC NewsAt just 15 years old, Coco Gauff has become a household name in the tennis world after becoming the youngest qualifier in history to make the main draw at Wimbledon, and the youngest woman to win a Wimbledon match in nearly 30 years.
At her first round match at the Grand Slam tournament last month, the teen defeated one of her tennis role models: five-time Wimbledon champ Venus Williams.
“I feel it’s harder to kinda wrap my head around it because I just looked up to her for so long,” Gauff told ABC’s Robin Roberts on Good Morning America Tuesday. “Sometimes I’ll tell my dad, like, ‘I got to play Venus. Can you believe it?..It’s crazy.”
The Florida high school student said she’s still adjusting to her newfound fame.
“It was crazy because growing up, I just thought about winning tournaments and playing Wimbledon and the Grand Slams, but I never thought about all that would come with it,” she said.
Gauff said she hopes to make a difference in the world on and off the court.
“My tennis dream, I guess, is to be the greatest of all time,” she said. “My dad always told me — ever since I was a little girl — that one day I will change the world with my racket. So I hope that one day I can do that, and I’m already thinking of ideas on how I can.”
Off the court, Gauff said, “A big focus for me is mental health.”
“I think I want to push that more I guess, especially now. On social media it’s a little bit, I guess, toxic,” she said. “So I think that, especially being young, it’s important that people kind of recognize that it’s an issue.
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