"End gun violence," Coco Gauff implored two years ago in Paris—a message that resonates in sports again today

This year, for Black History Month, we’re focusing on a young African-American player who has already made her share of tennis history. In her five years as a pro, Coco Gauff has grabbed the Grand Slam-winning baton from Venus and Serena Williams, while also continuing Arthur Ashe’s commitment to racial justice.

With Gauff’s 20th birthday coming up in March, we’re spending this week looking at five milestone moments from her teens.

2022: Lives up to the hype in Paris, and sends a message to politicians back home

By the spring of 2022, some questions had begun to swirl, or at least eddy, around Gauff’s game.

Yes, she was still only 18, and she was ranked in the Top 25—not many other players of this era could say that. But her trajectory had begun to flatline. She had lost within the first two rounds at the last two majors, in New York and Melbourne, and she was making early-round exits at most tour events. More concerning, her serve and forehand remained liabilities. Had she been “overhyped,” as some suggested, after all?

Then, in Paris, opportunity suddenly presented itself, as upsets came early and often to the women’s draw. By the end of the first week, 14 of the top 16 seeds were gone. That left Gauff, at No. 18, among the highest-ranked survivors as the tournament progressed. She didn’t face a single Top 30 seed in her first six matches, but she also didn’t drop a single set.

By the time she was in the final, the questions about her progress had stopped swirling. She had won her matches efficiently. She had proven that her running-and-retrieving-based game translated to clay, and that she could handle late-Slam tension. Her serve had mostly held up under the pressure.

As a player, Gauff showed she wasn’t afraid of the big stage in Paris. As a person and a representative of her country overseas, she showed she wasn’t afraid to keep expressing her opinions about U.S. politics, even after the George Floyd protests had died down. In the early summer of 2022, there were a spate of mass shootings in the United States. After her semifinal win at Roland Garros, Gauff paused from her personal celebrations to write, “Peace. End gun violence” on a camera lens in Court Philippe Chatrier. She must have known those words would have an alienating on some U.S. sports fans, but she wrote them anyway.

“I think that was just a message for the people at home to watch, and for people who are all around the world to watch,” said Gauff, who had friends who were involved in the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Fla. (Yesterday—exactly six years after the Parkland tragedy—another shooting occured at the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl victory parade.)

“Hopefully it gets into the heads of people in office to hopefully change things.”

That was just a message for the people at home to watch, and for people who are all around the world to watch. Coco Gauff

Two days later, Gauff would come up well short against Iga Swiatek in the final.

“Hitting winners, she’s always hitting winners,” the frustrated American said of her top-ranked opponent. By then, though, any talk of her being “overhyped” had passed for good. She knew she had what it took to make a Grand Slam final, and she knew who she had to beat—and how much better she had to get—to win one.

Coming Friday: Coco soars to Grand Slam glory