French Open: Can Coco Gauff get third time lucky?

American teen, more mature now, up against favourite Swiatek in the finalPARIS: Coco Gauff's laughter is halting, that's until it touches her eye and lights up her face. It sparks composure and conviction, signalling she's exactly where she wants to be. Who Gauff is, and what she does, her passion which is her profession, have merged in a seamless force that has pivoted her to superstardom at just 18. She's a person first and then a tennis player. Gauff, the pro, will take on the rampaging world no.1 Iga Swiatek for the Coupe Suanne Lenglen on Saturday, and the person, who speaks with the same determination as she swings her racket, brings balance to the composition. It's a whole page.

It's been four years since the American teenager, whose victory in the junior championships at Roland Garros in 2018, captioned her as a future champion. Some 12 months later, she worked her way through the Wimbledon qualifiers, beat Venus Williams in the first-round and made the round-of-16, to find that tennis was waiting for her. The next couple of years was about an inner battle, the weight of expectation, her own mostly. "There's a fine line between believing in yourself and almost pushing yourself too much," she said of last year's Paris campaign, when she made the last-eight. "I think at that moment I was pushing myself too much to do the results. I was in the quarterfinal, I didn't even enjoy the moment. There's a difference between ready and wanting it too much."

And what of the prudence that tells them apart. It's all in the game plan. It was a conversation with her grandmother Yvonne Lee that helped Gauff burst the pressure bubble she had unwittingly worked herself into. "My grandmother is always like, you just need to relax