French Open 2025: How Olympian Gabby Thomas' video and a mirror inspired Coco Gauff to victory

The Times of India at Roland Garros: Coco Gauff scripted a gritty comeback win over the world No.1 Aryna Sabalenka in the French Open final. The American won hearts and applause as she neutralized challenging conditions with her athleticism and monk-like calm, but did the 21-year-old take a page off pop culture and actually manifest her win on Saturday evening? After the two-hour 38-minute final Gauff pulled out a sheet of paper, carrying the words, I will win French Open 2025.

The handwritten sentence was repeated eight times on the sheet.The American was on TikTok on the eve of the final when an old interview of Gabrielle Thomas, the Olympic 200m champion, cropped up on her page. The American sprinter had written multiple times that she was going to get gold in the Paris Olympics. “I was like, why is this video of her being interviewed from the Olympics coming up on my page (now)?” Gauff said, adding, “Gabby says she wrote it either 50 or 500 times, I can’t remember.

She wrote, ‘I will be the Olympic champion.’ I was like, ‘I have this hotel (pad) and I’m going to write it as many times as I can fit on the (page), and I’m done.’”

“After that I looked myself in the mirror and told myself that I had the belief. Then obviously it happened,” she said of her win. “I didn’t know if it was going to work or not, but it did. It’s a great mindset that she (Gabrielle Thomas) had. I was on the mirror writing, trying to hurry up and write because I was ready to go to sleep.

But did I win because of that, I don’t know, but I’m going to say, I did.” Gauff, who took charge of the final, where she faced Sabalenka, the heaviest ball striker in the game, displaying a maturity beyond her years. The American has practice, having done much the same thing with her career.

A couple of years ago she asked her father Corey, who was managing and coaching her, to step back. She wanted the driver’s seat. It’s not a common thing in sport, where parents, who give up livelihoods for their children’s careers, often refuse to let go when the athlete might benefit in a professional environment. “(When) I asked my dad to take a step back, it ended up being a great thing for both of us,” Gauff said, adding that she asked her mother Candi, a former athlete, to travel with her. “I needed her to be on the road more, (travelling) with a team full of men, I needed some estrogen, some female energy here. Women just notice more things.”

“When you’re younger you don’t know how to distinguish your feelings, what you want to do and when’s the right time to say it and things like that,” Gauff explained, “As I got older, I felt I learned a lot about myself.

I know myself now, maybe not 100 percent, but I know a little bit more about the things I like and don’t like. That my parents support those decisions mean a lot.”

The world No.2, who now has two Major titles from three finals, said her parents trust her. “I’m a dynamite personality so they know if I really (say) something, I mean it,” she said of her decision to take charge of her tennis. “I know myself and know what I need, maybe not in the moment, but after trial and error you start to learn things about yourself. I’m glad that I don’t have pressure (from my) parents. They genuinely want to see me happy and obviously the on-court stuff is great, but their biggest goal for me in life is just to live a happy quality of life.

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