As Girl, 15, Takes On Venus Williams at Wimbledon, Who Are the Greatest Sporting Prodigies?

In qualifying for Wimbledon, American tennis prodigy Cori Gauff did not drop a single set and she is tipped to make a massive impact at the tender age of 15.

Gauff, who was born in Atlanta, Georgia, won the junior French Open title last year at the age of 14; Forbes is predicting she will earn more than US$1m in sponsorship and endorsements this year.

​She has been tipped to emulate her idol, Serena Williams, and as she prepared to take on the star’s sister, Venus, on 1 July she said simply: “I’m excited to see how I do.”

​Let’s take a look at other sporting stars who rose to prominence at an early age.

Boris Becker

The precociously talented German hit the headlines in 1985 when he won the men’s singles finals at Wimbledon at the age of 17, a year after turning pro.

The strawberry blonde teenager defeated South African-born Kevin Curren, 6-3, 6-7, 7-6, 6-4. 

He was the first German to win a Wimbledon title and he became an overnight star in his native country as well as in Europe and the United States.

Sports Illustrated featured him on its front cover in July 1985 under the headline, Das Wunderkind.

Becker - who started playing tennis at the age of eight - won six Grand Slam tournaments and 49 titles in total and made £20 million in prize money before retiring in 1998.

But Becker, 51, has hit hard times financially - being declared bankrupt in 2017 - and is now auctioning off 82 trophies, medals, watches and photographs to pay off his debts.

Steffi Graf

German tennis produced not just one wunderkind in the 1980s but two.

Steffi Graf was just 13 years old when she turned pro in 1982 and she lost her first match 6-4, 6-0 to the American Tracey Austin, who had won the US Open the year before.

But Graf was a quick learner and in 1987, when she was 18, she made her breakthrough, beating the world number one Martina Navratilova 6-4, 4-6, 8-6 in the final of the French Open.

Over the next decade she would win a total of 22 Grand Slam titles and accrued $21 million in prize money.

She had a devoted following in Germany, including one deranged fan - Gunther Parche - who stabbed her Yugoslav rival Monica Seles in 1993 because he feared she was about to challenge Graf’s dominance.

Parche reportedly hated Serbs and Seles’ lawyer told the trial: "Steffi Graf was the embodiment of the empire of good, Monica Seles the embodiment of the empire of evil."

Wayne Rooney

Wayne Rooney burst onto the season at the end of the 2002/3 season when he scored a superb 90th minute winner to end Arsenal’s unbeaten run of 30 games and become the youngest Premier League scorer. He was just 16.

​Liverpool-born Rooney supported Everton as a child and joined the club’s academy at the age of nine.

He joined Manchester United for £25.6 million, a world record fee for a teenager, in August 2004 and scored 183 goals for United, winning the Premier League title five times, the Champions League in 2008 and scoring more goals than anyone else for England - 53 in 120 appearances.

Rooney, who is now 33, has four children - Kai, Kaly, Kit and Cass - and currently plays for DC United in the MLS in the United States.

Mike Tyson

The young Mike Tyson had a difficult upbringing in the Hell’s Kitchen neighbourhood of New York, had been arrested 38 times by the age of 13 and his only friends as a child were the pigeons he kept in the loft on the roof of his apartment building.

But young Mike knew how to fight and had to dynamite in his fists.

His aptitude for boxing was spotted while he was detained at a home for delinquent juveniles and he was introduced to boxing promoter Cus D’Amato, who had guided the career of heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson in the 1950s.

D’Amato died, aged 77, in November 1985, a few months after Tyson had turned pro and won his first fight by KO.

Tyson, then 19, fought and won three times in November 1985, taking out his grief on his opponents.

By November 1986 he was ready for his first shot at a world title - he destroyed Jamaica’s Trevor Berbick within three rounds and won the WBC heavyweight title. At 20 years old, he was the youngest heavyweight champion in history.

Tyson won the WBA and IBF titles the following year and ruled as the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world until one night in 1990 when his world came tumbling down - he lost his title to Buster Douglas in Tokyo in one of the biggest shocks in sporting history.

Tyson was later jailed for rape - a crime he has always denied - and later regained the heavyweight title but retired in 2005, three years after being defeated by Lennox Lewis.  

The man once known as “the baddest man on the planet” has a totally new image nowadays - as an avuncular, cuddly and jokey podcaster.

Nadia Comaneci

Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci became a global superstar at the age of 14 because of her when flawless performance at the 1976 Montreal Olympics.

Her routine on the uneven bars won her a perfect ten score - the first time in Olympic history that such a score had been given out.

She went on to score a further six more tens and won two more gold medals at the Moscow Olympics in 1980.

In 1981 she defected to the United States, where she still lives.

Freddy Adu

But sometimes it does not pan out for child prodigies.

In 2004 Freddy Adu, 14, became the youngest ever player to appear in a professional sport in the United States when he made his debut for DC United against San Jose Earthquakes.

​A few weeks later he scored his first goal and he was soon getting rave reports from football scouts and journalists.

The young footballer, who had been born in Ghana, was dubbed “the next Pelé” and in 2006 he had a trial for Manchester United but could not get a work permit.

In 2007 he joined the Portuguese giants Benfica for $2 million and made his debut in a Champions League game, aged just 18.

But Adu’s early promise soon dissipated.

His form vanished and he became a journeyman, plying his trade far and wide - from Finland to Brazil.

Adu, still only 30, was released by Las Vegas Lights, in the US, last summer.

He is reportedly coaching youngsters in the US.