Coco Gauff makes honest admission about World No. 1 goal and her approach to it

Coco Gauff opened up about her feelings on wanting to become World No. 1. The American is currently in Doha for the first WTA 1000 event of the season, the 2025 Qatar Open, where she has entered as the third seed.

Though Gauff had a career-high ranking of 2 last year, she currently finds herself at World No. 3, trailing behind her biggest rivals Aryna Sabalenka and Iga Swiatek respectively.

During a recent interaction, she was asked about her thoughts on becoming the World No.1 to which the American responded by joking how the process of understanding the ranking situation was 'too mathematical' for her.

“I think just improving and seeing where it goes. For me, the points thing is just, first of all, too mathematical. I don’t know how people come up with all these different scenarios. Like it’s pretty impressive.”

She added that her utmost priority was to try and win every match and the rankings, in fact, went hand-in-hand with it.

"But yeah, I think I just focus on trying to win, and you know the ranking comes with it, so just trying to do my best to win, and obviously, the goal would be to be No. 1, that would be awesome, but it's not something that I'm like looking or checking every week to see how far I am from it."

It is worth noting that Coco Gauff is not far behind Aryna Sabaleka and Iga Swiatek in the live WTA rankings. While the Belarusian and the Pole have 8956 and 7890 points respectively, the 20-year-old has 6538 points.

She will now have a chance to take her points tally to 7430, provided she wins the Qatar Open. However, things won't be easy for the American as she faces a tough opponent from the get-go.

Coco Gauff will take on Marta Kostyuk in Qatar Open 2025 2R

Coco Gauff - Source: Getty

Coco Gauff will take on Marta Kostyuk in the second round of the 2025 Qatar Open, in what will be the fourth meeting between the two young stars. The American leads their head-to-head 3-1.

Gauff received a bye in the opening round of the WTA 1000 event as a result of being the third seed. On the other hand, Kostyuk kicked off her campaign with a routine 6-3, 6-3 win over Turkey's Zeynep Sonmez.

The two women are in the top half of the draw which is headlined by World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka and also features Jessica Pegula, Daria Kasatkina, and others.