{"id":27527,"date":"2023-08-15T11:32:07","date_gmt":"2023-08-15T15:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?p=27527"},"modified":"2023-08-15T11:32:07","modified_gmt":"2023-08-15T15:32:07","slug":"coco-gauff-thanks-church-family-and-god-after-biggest-career-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2023\/08\/coco-gauff-thanks-church-family-and-god-after-biggest-career-win.html","title":{"rendered":"Coco Gauff Thanks Church Family and God After Biggest Career Win"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_27536\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-27536\" style=\"width: 768px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2023\/08\/coco-gauff-credit-lev-radin-shutterstock-scaled.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-27536\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2023\/08\/coco-gauff-credit-lev-radin-shutterstock-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"coco gauff\" width=\"768\" height=\"576\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-27536\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">lev radin\/Shutterstock.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Nineteen-year-old American tennis star Coco Gauff publicly thanked her church and God for helping her overcome her first-round loss at Wimbledon last month to win the Mubadala Citi DC Open women&#8217;s final, where she impressively beat Greek world No. 9 Maria Sakkari 6-2, 6-3.<\/p>\n<p>She said, &#8220;First, I&#8217;d like to thank my Father God for this. After losing in first-round Wimbledon, it was a tough situation. You know, a lot of prayers and a lot of support from my church family. So thank you to Him and those who support me.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Gauff, a member of the historic Saint John Missionary Baptist Church in Boynton Beach, Florida, has previously discussed the importance of her faith and church family in her life. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/08\/26\/magazine\/coco-gauff-us-open.html\">In a <em>New York Times <\/em>piece<\/a>, she discussed her father, Corey, and shared how he would pray with her before each match for the health of both players. She told the publication it would be &#8220;stupid to waste a prayer on results.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/8kUL2q83AaQ\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Gauff first made major headlines in 2019 when she became the youngest qualifier in Wimbledon&#8217;s history. She won her first-round match against the formidable Venus Williams, a five-time singles champion at the tournament. She also credited God for that win. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/07\/01\/sports\/cori-gauff-venus-williams-wimbledon.html?register=facebook\">She revealed to NYT Magazine<\/a>, &#8220;Before every match since I was 8, my dad and I say a prayer together. We don&#8217;t really pray about victory, just that me and my opponent stay safe. After the match, I was just thanking God for this opportunity.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mubadalacitidcopen.com\/en\/media\/news\/coco-gauff-earns-first-singles-title-in-us-with-mubadala-citi-dc-open-triumph-over-maria-sakkkari\">statement cited by the D.C. Open<\/a>, Gauff explained what her first WTA-500 title, her fourth title overall in her career, means to her. She said, &#8220;It means a lot to me really. Any American tournament, I think, is special, but I feel like even more here. I have played Cincinnati, and I have played other tournaments in the U.S., even last year in San Jose when this was in San Jose, but I think that there is just something about D.C.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>With the help of her new team to support her development as a player, including new coach\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/sports\/tennis\/players\/profile?playerId=1047\">Pere Riba<\/a>, and team consultant Brad Gilbert, Gauff has addressed weaknesses in her game, like her forehand and footwork.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We all know that her forehand was always her weaker shot. I feel like now she&#8217;s improving that. She&#8217;s making more balls. She&#8217;s working on that,&#8221; Sakkari, 28, who had beaten Gauff four times, \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/tennis\/story\/_\/id\/38146366\/coco-gauff-tops-maria-sakkari-dc-open-final-fourth-wta-title\">said about Gauff&#8217;s improvement<\/a>. &#8220;Mentally, she looks a lot more mature. She knows what she&#8217;s doing on the court.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nineteen-year-old American tennis star Coco Gauff publicly thanked her church and God for helping her overcome her first-round loss at Wimbledon last month to win the Mubadala Citi DC Open women&#8217;s final, where she impressively beat Greek world No. 9 Maria Sakkari 6-2, 6-3. She said, &#8220;First, I&#8217;d like to thank my Father God for&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":657,"featured_media":27536,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3630,6,7,10],"tags":[5744],"class_list":["post-27527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletes","category-celebrities","category-entertainment","category-sports","tag-coco-gauff"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Coco Gauff Thanks Church Family and God After Biggest Career Win<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"American tennis sensation Coco Gauff recently took time to thank God and her church family after winning the biggest game in her career so far.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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