Teen tennis sensation Coco Gauff is on a mission to inspire

By Jonathan Hawkins and Becky Anderson, CNN

Updated 1215 GMT (2015 HKT) February 22, 2022

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(CNN)You should never meet your idols, so the adage goes. But what if fate not only brings you together, but also places you in direct competition on one of the world's biggest sporting stages?

That was the destiny of tennis sensation Cori «Coco» Gauff in 2019 when, as the youngest ever qualifier at Wimbledon, she found herself facing the legendary Venus Williams.«I just remember walking out on the court blasting music with my head held down because I didn't want to look at the crowd,» Gauff told CNN's Becky Anderson in Dubai. «It was such a long walk from the locker room. It was, like, 15 minutes,» she recalls. «Then they have all the walls of the champions, and obviously, I saw Venus there so