Gauff bows out in tears

MELBOURNE • Coco Gauff has warned she is not even close to achieving her full potential, despite exiting the Australian Open in tears yesterday.

Fellow American Sofia Kenin recovered from a set down to win 6-7 (5-7), 6-3, 6-0 to reach the last eight in Melbourne, the furthest she has been at a Grand Slam.

Gauff, at 15 the youngest player in the draw, had been one of the stories of the tournament, after beating Venus Williams in the first round and then reigning champion Naomi Osaka in the last 32.

The talk beforehand was all about her, but the teenager insisted that nerves had nothing to do with her shaky performance as she hit 48 unforced errors, including seven double faults.

Admitting that it had been a whirlwind experience, she added: "I couldn't really write this, I don't think anybody could really write how this past couple months have gone. I still have so much I feel like I can get better on. Even my parents, my team, they all believe I can get better.

"I don't even think this is close to a peak for me, even though I'm doing well right now. The thing I'm most proud of myself is how I handled it on the court. Even though today I lost a set 6-0, I was still believing I could win it."

Moving forward, Gauff would like to go one further than last year's fourth-round appearance at Wimbledon, which catapulted her into the sporting world's consciousness.

The world No. 67 also has designs on making it to the Tokyo Olympics in July, labelling the quadrennial tournament as "pretty cool".

She is now fifth on the United States qualifying list, behind Madison Keys, but no country can field more than four players in singles.

The prodigy is also hampered by WTA rules, which limits her participation to just one more event until she turns 16 in March.

The Olympic field will be determined by the WTA rankings after the French Open, but even though Gauff has confirmed she will play "maybe three tournaments" before Roland Garros, that has not stopped her from dreaming about the Games.

Number of unforced errors made by Coco Gauff in her 6-7 (5-7), 6-3, 6-0 defeat by fellow American Sofia Kenin.

"That's definitely the goal," she said. "Hopefully, I can get my ranking up and qualify. It will be difficult, but I'm going to try as hard as possible."

In the men's draw, Roger Federer flicked a switch after losing his opening set to crush Hungary's Marton Fucsovics 4-6, 6-1, 6-2, 6-2 and book a record 15th quarter-final berth at Melbourne Park.

This will be his 57th appearance in the last eight of a Major, with second-ranked Novak Djokovic a distant second on 46.

Awaiting Federer in the last eight tomorrow is Tennys Sandgren, who upset 12th-seeded Fabio Fognini of Italy 7-6 (7-5), 7-5, 6-7 (2-7), 6-4.

The Swiss is looking forward to his first meeting with the 100th-ranked American.

"It was a tough start, Marton played very clean," the 20-time Slam winner said. "It just took me some time, I tried to mix it up a bit and just had to figure it out.

"I've played a lot of tennis in my life, but never against Tennys."

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

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