Coco Gauff says the clay in Stuttgart may be one of the toughest surfaces on the WTA Tour, and the French Open champion is treating the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix as a test rather than a place to chase immediate results.
Speaking before her opening match at the tournament, Gauff said the indoor setting in the Porsche Arena makes the surface especially tricky. The 22-year-old said it is “special” and “a little bit slippery,” adding that the indoor component makes it different from the clay she will face later in the spring. Her focus, she said, is on the game plan, not on titles or ranking points at the start of the European clay-court season.
That approach matters because Gauff’s route to Roland Garros runs through Stuttgart, Madrid and Rome. She arrives as the reigning French Open champion, but the schedule gives her little room to drift. The first stop is a tournament she knows well and clearly enjoys. “This tournament treats me well. I like coming here,” she said.
Gauff also practiced in Stuttgart with Porsche Friend Eva Lys, and she spoke warmly about the German player’s level. She called Lys a very good player and said she can beat anyone on any given day if she stays healthy and finds her rhythm. That kind of sparring is part of what makes Stuttgart useful: the draw is strong, the surface is awkward and the matches come before the serious clay stretch really begins.
The Porsche Tennis Grand Prix first was played in 1978, and Porsche has accompanied the WTA’s oldest indoor event from the start. The company became a premium partner of the Deutsche Tennis Bund in 2012, and the Stuttgart event remains the flagship of its worldwide involvement in women’s tennis. For Gauff, though, the branding matters less than the conditions. She is trying to learn the surface before the biggest clay prize of all comes into view.
That creates the real tension in her buildup. Gauff is not talking like a player measuring success by trophies in April. She is talking like someone who knows that the road to Paris is built on matches like these, where the surface can turn a normal exchange into a scramble. If she handles Stuttgart cleanly, the next step toward Roland Garros already looks more manageable.
