Coco Gauff Reaches Her First US Open Semifinal at Age 19

Coco Gauff of the United States after winning her Women's Singles Quarterfinal match against Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia on Day Nine of the 2023 US Open at the USTA National Tennis Center in the Flushing neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City, on Sept. 5, 2023. Sarah Stier/Getty Images

NEW YORK—Coco Gauff knows what it takes to reach a Grand Slam final. Been there, done that. What she hasn’t experienced is winning a major championship. So her first trip to the semifinals at the U.S. Open does not leave her satisfied at all, no matter how dominant the performance was that got her to that stage.

“The dreams never came with the people in the stands and autographs. That was never in the dreams,” the 19-year-old from Florida said. “It was just, like, the trophy.”