Coco Gauff does not believe in fate. She says that fate is antithetical to her belief that she has the power to determine her own destiny at any given moment. However, few sporting moments in recent history have seemed as fateful as her wild Wimbledon breakthrough.

On one sleepy day in June Gauff was at home in Delray Beach, Florida, when she learned her qualifying wildcard had been accepted five days before the tournament began. She jumped on a plane the next day and eviscerated three opponents in a row to reach the main draw, escaping from the rugged grass courts of Roehampton with no practice on the surface. After the match a small group of journalists asked her whom she would like to face in her first grand slam main draw match.

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“I’m just happy to be there,” she said. “I would love to share the court with Serena. I remember at Miami Open I was more disappointed that I lost the round before I got to play Venus than that I lost in general, because I really wanted to play her. But, if I play either one of them, that would be a dream come true.”

It took less than 24 hours for Gauff’s dream to come true; she was drawn against Venus Williams at the tournament that has defined the elder American’s career. As Gauff walked down the Court One corridor and into the arena, disbelief circled her mind as she felt the presence of her idol behind her. Her nerves felt crippling. She stared resolutely at the floor so she would not lose her mind and she blasted her music at full volume to drown out the noise of an expectant crowd as she entered the court.

Venus Williams is far from her grand slam-winning form of a decade ago. She is 39 and Sjögren’s Syndrome auto-immune disease has slowed her for half of her career. She finished the season ranked 52nd. Still it was astonishing to see a 15-year-old bridge the 24-year age gap and play with a boldness under pressure that belied her inexperience.

Gauff’s service bombs crossed 116mph, she covered the court with long, fast strides that recalled Venus across the net and her backhand slotted winners at will.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Cori Gauff in action against Venus Williams at Wimbledon. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian

As her nerves quickly gave way to her competitive fire, she punctuated her winning points with cries of “c’mon” and she snatched the match on her terms. Gauff had entered the stadium with her head down but she left it with her chin to the sky and tears in her eyes as she secured a 6-4, 6-4 win.

A young star toppling a veteran athlete is a common occurrence in the cyclical world of sport but even those who were not quite familiar with the story of the Williams sisters understood that this was something more. Venus and Serena Williams rose to the pinnacle of tennis when it was still seen as a white, country club sport. Their presence offered players such as Gauff, Naomi Osaka, Madison Keys and many others the belief that they could follow suit.

Gauff was born in 2004, a year after the Williams sisters had competed against each other in four consecutive grand slam finals while occupying the top two ranking spots. She knows the Williams sisters only as the champions they are today. The night before the first round, Gauff decided she was going to thank Venus for her unwitting contribution to her career regardless of the result. As tears welled in her eyes at the net, Gauff finally found the courage to stare into her idol’s eyes: “Thank you for everything you’ve done,” she said. “I wouldn’t be here without you.”

When an unknown player upsets a big name, it is normal for their profile to rise and their matches to attract more fans but Gauff became a global superstar overnight. She stepped on to the court for the next round against Magdalena Rybarikova and the British crowd supported her as if she were one of their own. Then 5.2 million British people tuned in to watch Gauff save two match points against Polona Hercog in their desperate, dramatic third-round match, a battle between a 313-ranked American and a Slovenian ranked 60th that somehow played out in front of a nerve-riddled Centre Court crowd.

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Gauff’s journey ended in the fourth round with a 6-3, 6-3 defeat by the eventual champion, Simona Halep, who had to reckon with her surging opponent and a crowd cheering loudly for her demise.

Halep left the court certain that there will be more to come: “If she keeps going, she will be top-10 soon.”

Beyond the historic victory Gauff’s story seemed to resonate because of the snippets of her personality she showed. She was poised and ambitious and her honesty was sincere. When she was asked after beating Williams what her plans were for the rest of the tournament, her response was clear: “My goal is to win it.”

It was because of the barriers that Williams broke throughout her career and the way she normalised the sight of an ambitious black female tennis player that Gauff was able to make such a statement after the first grand slam match of her career and rather than being criticised across the world as arrogant, she stared back at a sea of impressed faces even more convinced that she will one day rise to the top.