When the Wimbledon draw was announced Friday, Gauff was handed a first-round match against 39-year-old Venus, a five-time champion at the All England Club.
Gauff will be the 12th youngest overall to play at the Wimbledon main draw, but the 11 others didn’t make it through qualifying.
The last 15-year-old to compete through a wild card slot at Wimbledon was Laura Robson in 2009, a British player who’d won Junior Wimbledon the year before.
The biggest tennis star of her generation
Gauff appeared on Wimbledon’s grass courts in the junior tournament last year, making it to the quarterfinals. “I’m a little bit familiar with the grounds,” she said.
If Gauff were to win Wimbledon this year, she’d be the youngest ever. But another 15-year-old woman also won the championship more than a century ago.
Correction: A previous version of this story misstated Cori Gauff’s home state. She was born in Georgia and is now a resident of Florida.