At Saturday’s women’s tennis final at Roland-Garros in Paris, Coco Gauff, 21, delivered an impressively beyond-her-years performance.

Gauff’s stellar defense—and some opportune moments of impeccable offense—secured her three-set victory over Aryna Sabalenka, 27, the world’s number-one-ranked player. Gauff returned serve extremely well and seemed to have all the answers to Sabalenka’s power hitting—from a shot-of-the-match backhand winner against an overhead to an arcing lob that was so well-placed you’d have thought it was drawn to its target by a magnet. Especially breezy conditions on Court Philippe-Chatrier made things complicated—for both players—yet Gauff breathed deep and rose against the headwinds, forcing Sabalenka to crash out.

There was something almost serene in watching Gauff’s gritty maturity coalesce as the match progressed: Despite the kicked-up brick dust scraping the air, she seemed entirely still between points, with zero nerves palpable. No hands were wrung, nor palms flared—while Sabalenka seemed to variously battle her team, herself, and the world at large, Gauff stayed largely quiet in her resolve, bar a few come ons.

Gauff is now a two-time major winner—with more certainly on the way. She spoke with us from New York City, between appointments on some morning talk shows.

Vogue: Congratulations, Coco! That was an incredible match to watch. Now that you’ve had 48 hours or so since the big win, tell us about the match. What worked best—and was there anything that might not have hit right away?

Coco Gauff: I think what worked best was just the mentality, honestly—stepping out on the court and accepting that it was going to be a tough one, and kind of an ugly one, because the conditions were so tough. And I guess what’s hit me later is thinking about the second set. It was actually a pretty clean set for me—but in the moment, it didn’t feel like that. I’m proud of the fight I put up in the first set, and I think that set me up to win the second. Then, in the third, honestly, anything could have happened.

The conditions were…I mean, you could see the wind’s effects on TV, which isn’t always the case. It looked like mayhem.

The clay was flying around, getting in your eyes, and at some points in the match it was a little bit rainy. Yeah. But that’s Paris! You never know what weather you’ll get.