It’s been a mixed start to the new year for our April cover star, Coco Gauff. The reigning US Open champion had a fantastic run at the Australian Open before going down in the finals, as Aryna Sabalenka avenged that tough loss in New York, but Gauff has stumbled a bit since, losing to Katarina Siniakova in the round of 32 in Qatar and to Anna Kalinskaya in the quarterfinals in Dubai (where she also had an extended standoff with the chair umpire over a flawed line call—for the record, Gauff was right—in an earlier match).
Today, though, Gauff’s quest for her next big title begins anew as the BNP Paribas Open—better know as Indian Wells—kicks off in California. Gauff has a bye in the first round, and so won’t take to the court until Saturday, when she’ll play the winner of the Clara Burel/Wang Xiyu match. But assuming she wins that, her next big test might come in the round of 16 against Naomi Osaka (again, provided that Osaka, whose return to tennis after a long maternity break has been a bit shaky thus far, makes it past 14th-seeded Liudmila Samsonova—no small feat at this point).
If all goes according to seedings, Gauff would still have to get by Sabalenka again (their matches and history thus far have all the makings of a fantastic, and long-running, rivalry) in order to square off against world number one, Iga Swiatek, or the defending Indian Wells champion, Elena Rybakina, in the final.
So, can she do it? I mean—have you seen her play? Of course she can. On a good day, in her best form, Gauff remains almost unbeatable. Of her rivalry with Sabalenka, it’s probably fair to say that the heavier burden remains on the shoulders of Sabalenka to hold her emotions in check while still swinging for the fences, as is her style. But Gauff’s ability—at a mere 19 years of age—to play the fiercest tennis on the tour while remaining almost ridiculously self-possessed is a thing to behold, and should serve her well here.
After that? The sky’s the limit. “One of the goals I wrote down on my vision thing, vision note, in my phone, was to win a medal in the Olympics,” she said earlier this year, just before the start of the Australian Open. So there’s that—along with the French, Wimbledon, and the US Open all there for the trying.
In short: It’s a good time to be Coco Gauff.
