Seventeen-year old, 24th-seeded Coco Gauff’s blistering run through the French Open field continued earlier today as she defeated 25th-seed Ons Jabeur 6-3, 6-1 (Gauff hasn’t lost a single set in the tournament thus far), seemingly effortlessly dictating the pace of play from the baseline and coming in to the net at opportune moments. In short, she’s been playing lights-out tennis on the clay of Roland Garros—and this on the heels of a victory on clay in the Parma tune-up tournament just before the French.
“I feel like this has been the most consistent tennis I have played at this level,” Gauff said after the match. “Hopefully I can keep that going.”
The next obstacle in her way? Unseeded Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic, who’s been on a roll of her own lately, making easy work of Sloane Stephens and, before her, 5th-seeded Elina Svitolina—and, like Gauff, she comes into the French having won her own tune-up tournament, in Strasbourg.
What to expect from their match on Wednesday? Look for Krejcikova to disrupt Gauff’s confidence and rhythm by throwing changeups in her pace and spin. But in all honestly, at this stage and at this level, the match could go either way—and with only four of the top 30-seeded women still left in the tournament, the victor here will have the smoothest path to a trophy that they could ask for. And so while both players have appeared poised thus far, expect nerves and match experience to become a factor—something that should likely favor Gauff, who’s become more and more used to the spotlight.
Two years ago, Gauff turned heads when, as a 15-year-old qualifier, she barnstormed her way to Wimbledon’s fourth round, defeating Venus Williams on the way. Now she’s the youngest American in the quarters of a Slam since … Venus, who was also 17 when she reached the quarters at the US Open in 1997.
Gauff pounced on the stat when a reporter asked her about it after her match against Jabeur. “I’m only going to be 17 once,” she said, “so you might as well talk about it while I’m 17.”