"Stop gun violence": these are the few words written by Gauff on camera Thursday, in reference to the recent shooting at a Texas elementary school in Uvalde, which cost life to 19 children and two teachers.

"It's important to me as a citizen. I have friends who lived through the Parkland shooting (17 people including 14 students killed in February 2018 in a Florida high school, editor's note). Luckily, they got away with it. went out but I remember seeing what they went through up close," explained the young Floridian after qualifying for her first Grand Slam final, ultimately losing 6-1, 6-3 to the world No.1. Iga Swiatek on Saturday.

"It's crazy, I was 13 or 14 when it happened, and nothing has changed since. It was a message for people in the United States, and those around the world who are watching. J "Hope that it will get into the heads of those in power and that they will change things. A reform must absolutely be carried out", she calls for her wishes.

Sport as a forum

"Now that I'm 18, I try to educate myself on certain issues, because I have the right to vote and I want to use it wisely," explains the young American.

And at only 18 years old – she celebrated them on March 13 – Gauff is already in line with other athletes who have spoken on social issues in recent years in particular.

Asked about her models, she evokes the basketball player LeBron James, the tennis players Serena Williams, Billie Jean King and Naomi Osaka, the American football player Colin Kaepernick.

“The list is still long,” she adds.

Coco Gauff against Iga Swiatek in the final of the Roland-Garros tournament, June 4, 2022 Christophe ARCHAMBAULT AFP

"Sport gives you a platform that allows your message to reach more people," says the player.

“Today, athletes are more comfortable expressing themselves on these subjects. Often we are put in boxes and people say that we should not mix sport and politics. But I am a human being before to be a tennis player. So of course I'm interested in these issues and I'm going to speak out on them. I'm not going to be an athlete all my life. There's a point when I'm going to retire athletic, and I will always be a human being," she insists.

"Not Stay Silent"

At the age of 16, in the midst of the "Black Lives Matter" movement in the United States, after the death of the African American George Floyd during a police check, Gauff took the microphone during a demonstration in his city of Delray Beach.

With two messages: "We must act" and "You must use your voice, whatever its range".

"You must not remain silent. If you choose silence, you choose the camp of the oppressor", she urges then.

Coco Gauff struggles to hold back tears after her first Grand Slam final on June 4, 2022 at Roland-Garros Anne-Christine POUJOULAT AFP

On a tennis court, the athletic Cori, nicknamed "Coco" and trained by her father Corey, a pattern that inevitably recalls that of the Williams sisters, made a name for herself at only 15 years old.

When she beat Venus, the eldest of the Williams, and was invited to the round of 16 at Wimbledon in 2019. Then at the Australian Open 2020, when she eliminated Osaka, then defending champion trophy, in the third round.

"As she won matches very young, everyone said she was going to win Grand Slams right away. (People) made her someone she was not", recalls from AFP Patrick Mouratoglou, who discovered Gauff at ten years old during a detection in his academy.

"She was ready to beat great players in a match. But over the duration of a Grand Slam, it's not the same story," he underlines.

Her fortnight in Paris showed that she was not so far from it.

© 2022 AFP