Coco Gauff achieves goal of balancing schoolwork and tennis with high school graduation

Most tennis players are solely focused on improving their craft, but American teenager Coco Gauff somehow successfully coupled playing tennis at a professional level with completing high school.

The 18-year old tennis phenom graduated from high school last week, an event that she celebrated with some photos in front of the Eiffel Tower. Gauff is currently in Paris competing at the 2022 Roland Garros, and secured passage to the second round following a win over Canadian Rebecca Marino.

The American revealed she is under a lot of pressure, not just to succeed on the tennis courts but also to excel in her schoolwork. Finding the right balance between both may be difficult for some, but Gauff seems to have achieved this with little effort.

“Balancing schooling and tennis it was honestly very difficult, just because I feel like tennis or at least in Grand Slams in particular…for me personally I get more mentally exhausted than physically,” she explained. “Physically I can play 20 more matches and mentally I'm barely grinding through this.

“So I think adding school to that was definitely a toll and I was so thankful that the teachers that I did have were very understanding of when I didn't submit work for a couple weeks and they never really bothered me, they knew I was playing.

“I'm very thankful for them because that could have been a lot more stressful if they weren't as understanding, which they probably could have been more because there was a lot of weeks I went without submitting work, but I got it done.”

Gauff excelled in history, especially World War 1 and World War 2 but says she’s delighted she doesn’t have to do any more maths.

“I hated that,” she said. “I'm so glad it's over. I know that it's something that you need every day. My dad is a math guy. He's like, You need to be good at math, and I'm like, Dad, listen, that's just something that I'm not going to do. There's a calculator for a reason and there's all these apps for a reason. You can, if you want to figure it out on paper, you do it.”