Coco Gauff's Clear Message After One-Sided Loss to Jasmine Paolini
Coco Gauff may have fallen short of her expectations at the Italian Open, but the 21-year-old American is keeping her eyes fixed on the bigger prize—Roland Garros.
After a surprisingly straightforward finals defeat to Italy’s Jasmine Paolini, Gauff admitted to being a little disappointed with the outcome, but she’s far from discouraged.
“I've enjoyed it, obviously, two results that I’m just a little bit disappointed in,” said Gauff during her press conference after the defeat. “But you know, overall, I have a lot of confidence going into Roland Garros, and hopefully I can get the final there and then actually win it,” said Gauff with a laugh. “But yeah, I think I saw Danielle say something like ‘it is better to lose in finals than first rounds’, so yeah I can agree with that,” she added.
thank you rome ❤️🥲 i’ll come back stronger pic.twitter.com/lOfLG8zwsR
— Coco Gauff (@CocoGauff) May 17, 2025
With this victory Paolini moves into the top 4 of the WTA rankings, on Monday. This also means that Iga Swiatek will not be seeded in the top 4 at the Roland Garros. However, Coco Gauff seemed to downplay the importance of seeding at grand slams and said that the depth in WTA tour ensures quality opponents in every round.
“Seeding- I mean, it obviously helps when you are seeded higher, but I mean, at these grand slams, it really it helps for the first couple rounds, but you know, once you're in the quarters, or maybe even fourth round, it's kind of pointless, because you're playing great players, and if you want to win that big trophy, you have to be an incredible player,” said Gauff.
“So yeah, so it helps you out so you don't maybe play someone like high ranked in the first round. But I mean that's the depth on the tour now, there's a lot of people who will be unseeded that are definitely dangerous players, so I don't really take any attention to it,” she added.
With Jasmine Paolini’s victory in Rome, it remains difficult to choose a WTA favorite this year for Roland Garros. Hopefully, the two big finals in the past few weeks, give Gauff the confidence to target the title in Paris.
