LONDON (AP) — Before Wimbledon began, Coco Gauff reflected on the significance of her breakthrough performance at the place six years ago — a run to the fourth round at age 15 — and what aspirations she harbored as she prepared to return.
“Even when I see videos of me during that time, it just doesn’t feel like it’s me. It felt like a dream. I’ll always have special memories from that run and, I guess, it definitely fueled the belief that I can be on tour and live out my dream,” she told The Associated Press.
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Coco Gauff of the U.S. returns the ball to Dayana Yastremska of Ukraine during their first round women's single match at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Tuesday, July 1, 2025.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Dayana Yastremska of Ukraine returns the ball to Coco Gauff of the U.S. during their first round women's single match at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Tuesday, July 1, 2025.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Coco Gauff of the U.S. reacts after losing her first round women's single match against Dayana Yastremska of Ukraine at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Tuesday, July 1, 2025.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Coco Gauff of the U.S. reacts during her first round women's single match against Dayana Yastremska of Ukraine at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Tuesday, July 1, 2025.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
“It’s something that always holds a special place in my heart. Obviously, I would love to win this tournament just for it to be like a full-circle moment,” she continued. “I feel like it would be like the start of the dream, and — I don’t want to say ‘the finish,’ because I obviously have a lot of career left, but — a full-circle type of situation.”
A week after that conversation, the No. 2-ranked Gauff was out of the bracket at the All England Club in the first round with a 7-6 (3), 6-1 loss to unseeded Dayana Yastremska at No. 1 Court on Tuesday night. Gauff was undone by serving troubles, including nine double-faults, and more than two dozen unforced errors in all, not to mention Yastremska's hard, flat groundstrokes.
It was an abrupt, and mistake-filled, exit for Gauff, who so recently earned her second Grand Slam title — at the French Open via a three-set victory over No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka in the final.
After Tuesday's defeat, Gauff said, “I definitely was struggling in the locker room. I don’t like losing. The main thing I’m sure my team and everyone is going to tell me (is): 'You did well at Roland-Garros. Don't be so upset.' Things like that.”
But as much as she'll want to move on and focus on what's to come, the 21-year-old American acknowledged as she dabbed away the tears welling in her eyes during her news conference that she felt “a little bit disappointed in how I showed up today.”
It's instructive to remember — setting aside that captivating 2019 debut, which featured a victory over Venus Williams — that Wimbledon's grass courts actually have produced Gauff's least successful Grand Slam results.
Yastremska's take? She said she considers Gauff “much better on clay court and hard court than on grass.”
This was the second time in the past three years that she was sent home in the opening round. She's never been past the fourth round at the All England Club, whereas at every other major tournament, including the hard-court Australian Open, she's at least reached the semifinals.
Her first Slam trophy arrived on the hard courts of the U.S. Open in 2023 when she was 19. She already was the 2022 runner-up on the red clay at the French Open before going one step better this time.
Sabalenka's self-described “unprofessional” comments after last month's title match in Paris became a real topic of conversation and, perhaps, a distraction. Gauff and Sabalenka sought to put it behind them — and tell fans they should, too — by filming TikTok videos together once they got to Wimbledon.
“I was a little bit overwhelmed with everything that came afterwards,” Gauff said, “so I didn’t feel like I had enough time to celebrate and also get back into it.”
It's not easy to manage the tricky transition from the Roland-Garros clay to the Wimbledon grass. There's a reason it's been a decade since a woman won both in the same season — and a reason that woman was Serena Williams.
By the end of the night, Gauff was eager to look ahead to the upcoming North American hard-court circuit, culminating with a trip to New York in late August.
“I mean, obviously I’m not going to dwell on this too long, because I want to do well at the U.S. Open. Maybe losing here (in the) first round isn’t the worst thing in the world,” she said, “because I have time to reset.”
Coco Gauff of the U.S. returns the ball to Dayana Yastremska of Ukraine during their first round women's single match at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Tuesday, July 1, 2025.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Dayana Yastremska of Ukraine returns the ball to Coco Gauff of the U.S. during their first round women's single match at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Tuesday, July 1, 2025.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Coco Gauff of the U.S. reacts after losing her first round women's single match against Dayana Yastremska of Ukraine at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Tuesday, July 1, 2025.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Coco Gauff of the U.S. reacts during her first round women's single match against Dayana Yastremska of Ukraine at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Tuesday, July 1, 2025.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump said Sunday he believes both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin truly want peace, as he welcomed the “brave” Ukrainian leader for talks at his Florida resort.
“The two leaders want it to end,” Trump said at the outset of the meeting at Mar-a-Lago. Before Zelenskyy arrived, Trump spoke with Putin by phone for more than an hour, and planned to speak with him again soon after.
Greeting Zelenskyy at Mar-a-Lago, Trump said of him: “This gentleman has worked very hard, and is very brave, and his people are very brave."
Zelenskyy, by Trump's side, said he’d discuss issues of territorial concessions with Trump, which have so far been a red line for his country. He said his negotiators and Trump’s “have discussed how to move step by step and bring peace closer” and would continue to do so in the meeting.
Russia intensified its attacks on Ukraine’s capital in the days before the meeting.
Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov, said the call was initiated by the U.S. side, lasted over an hour, and was “friendly, benevolent, and businesslike.” Ushakov said Trump and Putin agreed to speak again “promptly” after Trump’s meeting with Zelenskyy.
Trump and Zelenskyy met at Trump’s private club in Palm Beach, where the U.S. president is spending the holidays. Zelenskyy, who arrived in Miami in the morning, said the two planned to discuss security and economic agreements in their early afternoon meeting. He said he will raise “territorial issues” as Moscow and Kyiv remain fiercely at odds over the fate of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.
In overnight developments, three guided aerial bombs launched by Russia struck private homes in the eastern city of Sloviansk, according to the head of the local military administration, Vadym Lakh. Three people were injured and one man died, Lakh said in a post on the Telegram messenger app.
The strike came the day after Russia attacked Ukraine’s capital with ballistic missiles and drones on Saturday, killing at least one person and wounding 27, a day before planned talks between the leaders of Ukraine and the United States, Ukrainian authorities said. Explosions boomed across Kyiv as the attack began in the early morning and continued for hours.
In advance of his meeting with Trump, Zelenskyy said Sunday that he spoke on the phone with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, filling him in “on the situation on the frontline and on the consequences of Russian strikes.” He posted on X: “Thank you, Keir, for the constant coordination!" Zelenskyy's office said he will speak by phone with allies after the meeting with Trump.
Trump, on Truth Social, said he and Zelenskyy will meet in the main dining room of Mar-a-Lago and the news media will be allowed in.
In a meeting Saturday with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Zelenskyy said the key to peace is “pressure on Russia and sufficient, strong support for Ukraine.” To that end, Carney announced more economic assistance from his government to help Ukraine rebuild.
Denouncing the “barbarism” of Russia’s latest attacks on Kyiv, Carney credited both Zelenskyy and Trump with creating the conditions for a “just and lasting peace” at a crucial moment.
“Ukraine is willing to do whatever it takes to stop this war,” Zelenskyy posted Saturday. “We need to be strong at the negotiating table.”
In response to the attacks, he wrote: “We want peace, and Russia demonstrates a desire to continue the war. If the whole world — Europe and America — is on our side, together we will stop” Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Trump and Zelenskyy sitting down face-to-face also underscored the apparent progress made by Trump’s top negotiators in recent weeks as the sides traded draft peace plans and continued to shape a proposal to end the fighting. Zelenskyy told reporters Friday that the 20-point draft proposal negotiators have discussed is “about 90% ready” — echoing a figure, and the optimism, that U.S. officials conveyed when Trump’s chief negotiators met with Zelenskyy in Berlin earlier this month.
During the recent talks, the U.S. agreed to offer certain security guarantees to Ukraine similar to those offered to other members of NATO. The proposal came as Zelenskyy said he was prepared to drop his country’s bid to join the security alliance if Ukraine received NATO-like protection that would be designed to safeguard it against future Russian attacks.
Zelenskyy also spoke on Christmas Day with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law. The Ukrainian leader said they discussed “certain substantive details" and cautioned “there is still work to be done on sensitive issues” and “the weeks ahead may also be intensive.”
The U.S. president has been working to end the war in Ukraine for much of his first year back in office, showing irritation with both Zelenskyy and Putin while publicly acknowledging the difficulty of ending the conflict. Long gone are the days when, as a candidate in 2024, he boasted that he could resolve the fighting in a day.
After hosting Zelenskyy at the White House in October, Trump demanded that both Russia and Ukraine halt fighting and “stop at the battle line,” implying that Moscow should be able to keep the territory it has seized from Ukraine.
Zelenskyy said last week that he would be willing to withdraw troops from Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland as part of a plan to end the war, if Russia also pulls back and the area becomes a demilitarized zone monitored by international forces.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Friday that the Kremlin had already been in contact with U.S.
“It was agreed upon to continue the dialogue,” he said.
Putin has publicly said he wants all the areas in four key regions that have been captured by his forces, as well as the Crimean Peninsula, illegally annexed in 2014, to be recognized as Russian territory. He also has insisted that Ukraine withdraw from some areas in eastern Ukraine that Moscow’s forces haven’t captured. Kyiv has publicly rejected all those demands.
The Kremlin also wants Ukraine to abandon its bid to join NATO. It warned that it wouldn’t accept the deployment of any troops from members of the military alliance and would view them as a “legitimate target.”
Putin also has said Ukraine must limit the size of its army and give official status to the Russian language, demands he has made from the outset of the conflict.
Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, told the business daily Kommersant this month that Russian police and national guard would stay in parts of Donetsk -– one of the two major areas, along with Luhansk, that make up the Donbas region — even if they become a demilitarized zone under a prospective peace plan.
Ushakov cautioned that trying to reach a compromise could take a long time. He said U.S. proposals that took into account Russian demands had been “worsened” by alterations proposed by Ukraine and its European allies.
Trump has been somewhat receptive to Putin’s demands, making the case that the Russian president can be persuaded to end the war if Kyiv agrees to cede Ukrainian land in the Donbas region and if Western powers offer economic incentives to bring Russia back into the global economy.
Kim reported from Washington and Morton from London. Associated Press writers Illia Novikov in Kyiv and Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump greets Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at his Mar-a-Lago club, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
President Donald Trump greets Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at his Mar-a-Lago club, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
President Donald Trump greets Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at his Mar-a-Lago club, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
President Donald Trump greets Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at his Mar-a-Lago club, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Karen Blake of Ft. Lauderdale, poses with a sign at the "Rally in Support of Ukraine" organized by the Ukrainian Association of Florida as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy meets with U.S. President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in West Palm Beach, Fla., Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Jen Golbeck)
President Donald Trump waves as he departs Trump International Golf Club, Saturday, Dec. 27, 2025, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
A psychologist of a rescue team helps en elderly woman at the hospice which was damaged after a Russian strike on Kyiv, Ukraine, on Saturday, Dec. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Rescuers put fragments of a body of the victim into a plastic bag after Russian drone hit a multi-storey apartment building during massive missile and drone attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Dec. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
President Donald Trump pumps his fist at Christmas Eve dinner at his Mar-a-Lago club, Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Prime Minister Mark Carney, left, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hold a news conference in Halifax, N.S. on Saturday, Dec. 27, 2025.(Riley Smith /The Canadian Press via AP)
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks during a media conference at the EU Summit in Brussels, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
