Chris Evert has high praise for Coco Gauff following the teenager's double qualification for the WTA Finals
WTA
18-year-old Coco Gauff has earned a special bit of praise from 18-time Grand Slam singles champion Chris Evert. Gauff recently sealed spots in both the singles and doubles events at the WTA Finals later this month.
Evert said that Gauff was "awesome" on the court and also in her conduct off it, replying to a tweet from tennis journalist Ben Rothenberg. Earlier this week, Gauff became the youngest player since Maria Sharapova to qualify for the WTA Finals.
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"Totally agree….. she’s awesome on and off the court!" Evert wrote on Twitter.
Rothenberg wrote about the youngster's incredible achievement of reaching the prestigious season-ending finale in both singles and doubles at such a young age.
He even joked that while there is a conscious effort in the tennis world not to "overhype" Gauff, her latest achievement deserves to be hyped.
"Coco Gauff qualifying for WTA year-end championships in singles AND doubles at age 18 is an unreal accomplishment. I know there was an effort to avoid overhype Gauff when she arrived to tour, but we should probably allow ourselves to stop and say "omg wtf wow amazing" sometimes," Rothenberg wrote on Twitter.
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Gauff earned her place in the singles event of the WTA Finals with a second-round win against Elisabetta Cocciaretto at the Guadalajara Open Akron earlier in the week. The World No. 7 reached the singles quarterfinals of the WTA 1000 event on Thursday, where she lost to former World No.1 Victoria Azarenka.
While Gauff will be the youngest singles participant in the WTA Finals since Sharapova in 2005, she will be the youngest doubles participant at the year-ending tournament since the turn of the century. She qualified for the doubles event alongside fellow American Jessica Pegula. The teenager has also reached the quarterfinals of the doubles event in Guadalajara, partnering with Pegula.
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