Wimbledon 2021: 'I'm close', Coco Gauff reflects on fourth-round loss at Grand Slam event

Coco Gauff’s second Wimbledon ended much like her first – with a fourth-round loss to one of the tournament favorites.

The difference this time is that the 17-year-old American felt she's on the verge of going much further in a major.

”I just feel like I’m close,” Gauff said after losing to 2018 Wimbledon champion Angelique Kerber 6-4, 6-4 on Centre Court. ”Always competitive in these matches against these top players.”

It was at Wimbledon that Gauff made a whirlwind breakthrough at age 15 in 2019, becoming the youngest woman to qualify for the grass-court Grand Slam and then taking out Venus Williams en route to the fourth round.

That time she lost to eventual champion Simona Halep. This time it was Kerber, the only remaining former Wimbledon champion, who outplayed her in the crucial moments.

Kerber converted four of the five break points she created and saved four of the six she faced.

”I just need to do better on certain points and certain moments in the match,” Gauff said. ”I have to notice when the momentum changes and how to react to when it changes.”

Gauff has already become a regular on Centre Court — she was placed there for three of her four matches in this tournament — and seems completely unfazed playing on the sport’s biggest stage.

She struggled with the windy conditions at the start of her match against Kerber, but in the end it was her overly aggressive mindset that proved costly.

”There were times I had a lot of unforced errors just strictly for the fact of trying to go for too much,” she said. ”In the past I have had tendencies to play too passive, and now I’m playing too aggressive. I just need to find the medium for when the score is tight and I’m feeling the pressure.”