Coco Gauff: 'Roger Federer gave me a new perspective'

In an interview to TennisChitChat.com Coco Gauff spoke about her maiden career-title in Linz.

The 15-year-old American player said: “It’s definitely an unbelievable feeling for me. I thought I was out of the tournament in the last round of qualifying.

I thought it was over...then the next thing you know I’m in the finals, playing for my first title”. Gauff believes the big success will not influence her mindset:

"For me, it’s not too hard to stay grounded just because I have great parents, who have always instilled that into me.

Also, I always constantly have motivation to accomplish my goals," she said.

"You can’t really get too big-headed if you want to accomplish your goals and yes, after Wimbledon, I definitely got a lot of attention but I was just focused on my goals for this year and focused on accomplishing those.

I think that’s kind of what keeps me grounded, just always staying motivated and I know the things I need to do”.

Gauff also spoke about how Roger Federer has been helping her. She said:

“He just gave me advice to keep going, to try not to focus too much on the pressure and the outside drama that’s going on.

At that the time, people were expecting me to win the Australian Open, and that put a lot of pressure on me.

He was just telling me that it was important not to play with that pressure. If anyone, Roger Federer knows what it’s like to play with pressure, and he kind of just gave me a new perspective.

He told me to enjoy tennis and that none of this would really matter a few years from now. He was right, (now) I don’t really think about losing first round of the Australian Open at all”.