Coco Gauff is finally on the cusp of fulfilling great expectations as she faces No. 10 seed Karolina...
Daily Mail Wimbledon swooned when, in 2019, Coco Gauff, emerged from the qualifying to beat Venus Williams en route to a fourth round showing when she had barely turned fifteen.
It turned out, however, that we were not witnessing a Martina Hingis-type wonderkid, and not even an Emma Raducanu, soaring from nowhere to claim one of the sports biggest prizes.
Two years on from Raducanu, Gauff is finally on the cusp of fulfilling great expectations. She is into Thursdays last four of the US Open, where homegrown success is an ingredient that has been in short supply.
That she is accompanied by 20 year-old Ben Shelton into the closing stages sees the event continuing to resonate with the wider American sporting public, even in a week when attention is focused on the eagerly-awaited start of the NFL season.
They are part of what feels like the start of tenniss regeneration process amid the recent or imminent departures of marquee names. This being such an important market, the importance of having at least two bright young athletes from the US as a significant part of that can hardly be understated.
