Coco Gauff Is Chasing History at Wimbledon. The Trophy Is Just Part of the Story

She was 15 years old the first time she walked onto the grass at Wimbledon and beat Venus Williams. The tennis world did not know what to do with that. A teenager from Delray Beach, Florida, in braids, playing like someone twice her age, beating one of the greatest players the sport had ever seen.

That was 2019. Seven years later, Coco Gauff is in the Wimbledon quarterfinals for the first time in her career. She is 22 years old. She has two Grand Slam titles. She is the highest-paid female athlete in the world. And she is four wins away from completing the career Grand Slam.

But the trophy has never been the whole story with Coco.

What She Is Doing at This Tournament

Gauff has now reached the fourth round at Wimbledon four times in her career. In her three previous appearances, she failed to advance past it. This year she finally broke through.

She punched her ticket to the Wimbledon quarterfinals at the 11th hour — literally. Two minutes shy of the Championships’ strict 23:00 curfew, she completed her fourth-round comeback against Belinda Bencic in a two-hour, 18-minute win.

Gauff came into the Championships without a grass-court win in two years, and in her fourth appearance in the fourth round, she has finally cracked the code to reach the quarterfinals of the world’s oldest and most prestigious tennis tournament.

She now faces fellow American Jessica Pegula in the quarterfinals on Tuesday. An all-American quarterfinal at Wimbledon. Two players who grew up watching each other become great, now standing across the net at the biggest tournament in tennis.

After winning the US Open in 2023 and the French Open in 2025, Gauff only needs to win Wimbledon and the Australian Open to complete a career Grand Slam. She has never been this close at SW19. She knows it. The whole tennis world knows it.

Where She Came From

Coco Gauff grew up in Delray Beach, Florida. Her father Corey bought her her very first racket — it was pink — after watching Serena Williams dominate the Australian Open. A photo of Williams hung on her bedroom wall. She grew up in a family that understood what it meant to use a platform for something bigger than yourself.

Her grandmother was the first Black student at her Delray Beach high school in 1961. That family legacy did not stay in the past. Coco carried it forward with her everywhere she went.

The first time Coco Gauff met Serena Williams, she had to step into the tennis legend’s shoes — literally. About a decade ago, Delta Air Lines needed a body double to portray a younger version of the 23-time Grand Slam singles champion in a commercial and found the preteen Gauff at the last minute. She said it felt not real. You could have told her that was Jesus.

Now she is the one young girls have photos of on their bedroom walls.

The Voice That Does Not Stay Quiet

Gauff has long been recognized not only for her rapid rise in tennis but also for her willingness to speak about social issues. From addressing crowds at protests to using press conferences as platforms for awareness, she has consistently argued that being an athlete does not mean being apolitical.

At just 16 years old, she said at a protest: “If you choose silence, you choose the side of the oppressor.”

Her maternal grandmother made history in the 1960s as the first Black student to desegregate a public school in Delray Beach, Florida. That act of courage shaped how Gauff views her own platform and responsibilities. She is literally descended from activism.

Earlier this year in Dubai, Gauff made her position crystal clear during a press conference. She explained that witnessing people lose their lives simply for existing strikes at the core of everything she believes in. She was preparing for a tennis match. She spoke anyway.

“I want to win Grand Slams, but I also want to be someone who stands for something,” she said.

That is not a quote from a press release. That is who she actually is.

The Business She Is Building

Gauff ends 2025 third in the WTA Tour’s rankings and has collected 11 career singles titles. That total includes two Grand Slams. Since turning professional in 2018, she has accumulated nearly $30 million in prize money, the 11th-best mark in WTA history.

She is similarly a force off the court, where Gauff has a robust portfolio of sponsors including New Balance, Baker Tilly, and Mercedes-Benz, and hauls in an estimated $25 million annually. That figure lands her at the top of Forbes’ list of the world’s highest-paid female athletes for the second straight year with total income of $33 million.

And she is just getting started. Watching Osaka, who left IMG to found Evolve, and Federer start their own agencies had a profound impact on Gauff. “I think there’s a certain level of freedom when you are rocking with yourself,” she says.

She is building toward that. The partnership with Religion of Sport on storytelling content. The conversations about founding her own agency. The understanding, passed down from her father, that the moment she starts taking an active role in her business endeavors is the moment everything changes.

She is 22 years old. She is already thinking five moves ahead.

What Wimbledon Would Mean

Gauff needs Wimbledon and the Australian Open to complete a career Grand Slam. If she wins here, she joins an extremely short list of players in the history of women’s tennis. That list includes Williams, Graf, Navratilova, Evert, and a handful of others.

The grass has been the surface that kept her waiting the longest. Four times to the fourth round. Never further. Until now.

Tuesday’s quarterfinal against Pegula is the match that matters. Win that, and she is two wins from a Wimbledon final. Two wins from the one title that has felt just out of reach.

She came into this tournament without a grass-court win in two years. She has won four matches in a row. She is playing the best tennis of her life on the hardest surface she has ever faced.

That sounds exactly like Coco Gauff.