Coco Gauff Is Still in Disbelief at Becoming a Grand Slam Champion
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2004-present
Coco Gauff Today: Tennis Star Wins 1st Grand Slam at US Open
Teenage tennis star Coco Gauff rallied to beat Belrusian player Aryna Sabalenka in three sets in the U.S. Open women’s singles final on Saturday, giving the 19-year-old American her first Gland Slam tournament victory. Gauff, who rose to No. 3 in the WTA singles rankings with the championship, received celebratory messages from a number of prominent figures, including President Joe Biden and former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. “It’s still crazy,” Gauff said during an appearance on NBC’s Today show. “‘Even last night I was telling myself, ‘You’re a Grand Slam champion,’ and it doesn’t feel real at all.”
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Who Is Coco Gauff?
American tennis player Gauff received a wild card entry to Wimbledon in 2019 when she was 15 and immediately rose to prominence by defeating five-time tournament champion Venus Williams in the first round. That year, Gauff also reached the third round of the U.S. Open and won her first singles title. The teenage phenom was selected to the U.S. Olympic team in June 2021 but had to withdraw from the delayed Tokyo Games after testing positive for COVID-19. At 19, she won her first Grand Slam title at the 2023 U.S. Open.
Quick Facts
FULL NAME: Cori Dionne Gauff
BORN: March 13, 2004
BIRTHPLACE: Delray Beach, Florida
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Pisces
Early Life and Parents
Cori Dionne Gauff was born on March 13, 2004, in Delray Beach, Florida. She was named after her father, Corey. She told Sports Illustrated Kids in an interview that, to avoid confusion with their similar names, her aunt suggested calling her Coco, a play on one of her father’s old nicknames. Gauff has two younger brothers, Cameron and Cody.
Athleticism runs in the family. Corey played Division I basketball at Georgia State University. Her mother, Candi, was a gymnast who also participated in Division I track and field at Florida State University. Because Gauff’s parents were athletes, they wanted their firstborn to pursue a sport. So, Gauff began playing tennis at the age of 6.
Gauff spent her early years in Georgia. Her mother was a teacher, while her father was a pharmaceuticals executive. To support Gauff’s tennis training and career, her parents opted to leave their jobs and move back to Delray Beach. Candi began to homeschool her daughter while Corey became her coach.
Early Tennis Career
By the time she was 10, Gauff had traveled to France to work with Patrick Mouratoglou, who coached Serena Williams. She continued to train with Mouratoglou, but her father was her main coach.
Corey has said of Gauff’s development, “Be a well-rounded athlete, learn other sports—that’s one thing we emphasized with Coco early on; she was in gymnastics, soccer, basketball, and she ran track. We wanted her to develop as a total athlete.”
Gauff won the United States Tennis Association Clay Court National 12-under title in 2014. In 2017, she took second place at the U.S. Open Girls Junior Championships. The next year she became the junior champion at the French Open.
Due to Women’s Tennis Associate rules instituted in 1994, young tennis stars can’t turn pro until they reach age 18, though there are exceptions for participating in a limited number of professional events every year. Some people have questioned whether the structure, intended to protect players, is too limiting. Because Gauff was only permitted a certain number of tournaments, she had been slower to rise in the player rankings during her first couple years of competition.
Professional Tennis Career
In January 2019, Gauff told friends and family her goal for the year was to become one of the top 100 ranked players in the WTA. She was ranked No. 685 at the time. She made her WTA debut in March at the Miami Open—just a week after turning 15—and won her first match against fellow American Caty McNally.
In June 2019, Gauff scrambled to get to London after receiving a wild card slot to play at Wimbledon. In the first, round she faced off against Venus Williams. In addition to being a five-time champion at Wimbledon, Williams and her sister Serena were Gauff’s tennis idols. Gauff came out triumphant and later credited a conversation she had with former pro Mary Joe Fernández for giving her confidence before the match. “I remember before I talked to her, I was just grateful for the opportunity, and I wanted to see how well I could do and she completely changed my mindset,” Gauff told Sports Illustrated Kids. “She was like, ‘No, you have to go into this match thinking that you can win and believing that you can win.’”
Gauff made it to the fourth round, the youngest player to do so since 1991. Her success drew so much attention it inspired the term “Cocomania.” Soon afterward, she lasted until the third round of the U.S. Open, again the youngest to accomplish the feat since 1991. Her loss was followed by a moment of touching sportsmanship when winner Naomi Osaka invited Gauff to take part in the post-match interview.
Gauff’s first WTA title came at Austria’s Linz Open in October 2019. This triumph was made possible, in part, because she was able to qualify for the tournament’s main draw as a “lucky loser” after another player left due to injury. Gauff also climbed to No. 71 in the world that month, meeting the ranking goal she’d set for herself. She ended the year at No. 68.
In 2020, Gauff reached the fourth round of the Australian Open after beating Osaka in the third round. Gauff ascended to the quarterfinals of the French Open in 2021, the youngest player to reach that spot since 2006. That year, she also got to the fourth round of Wimbledon and added another WTA singles title to her collection with a win in Parma, Italy.
In addition to her singles success, Gauff has played in and won doubles tournaments, often with McNally. An injury prevented McNally from partnering with Gauff at the 2021 French Open, so Gauff played doubles there with Venus Williams. Unfortunately, they lost in the first round.
In 2020, Gauff shared in an essay that before her success at Wimbledon in 2019, she’d experienced “this pressure that I needed to do well fast.” She’d also struggled with depression for “about a year.” She noted that things changed for her after “I realized I needed to start playing for myself and not other people.” She said of this struggle: “I came out of it stronger and knowing myself better than ever.”
2020 Tokyo Olympics
The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a one-year delay for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. In 2021, Gauff was selected for the U.S. Olympic team following her success at the French Open in June. The 17-year-old would have been the youngest tennis Olympian since 2000.
Sadly, a positive COVID test forced Gauff to withdraw from the Games. On July 18, 2021, she wrote on Twitter, “I am so disappointed to share the news that I have tested positive for COVID and won’t be able to play in the Olympic Games in Tokyo. It has always been a dream of mine to represent the USA at the Olympics, and I hope there will be many more chances for me to make this come true in the future. I want to wish TEAM USA best of luck and a safe games for every Olympian and the entire Olympic family.”
2023 US Open Victory
Although Gauff was ranked solidly in the top 10 since September 2022, she had never won a major tournament—with her best finish being runner-up at the 2022 French Open. However, she finally broke through with her first Grand Slam title at the 2023 U.S. Open.
She won seven matches total—including three against players inside the top 20—and claimed an overall victory with a three-set win over Belarusian player Aryna Sabalenka on September 9. She became the youngest American woman to win the tournament since Serena Williams in 1999.
Winnings and Endorsements
Gauff won $538,103 in prize money in 2019 and $509,862 in 2020. Her winnings climbed to more than $1 million in 2021. Gauff earned $3 million for her breakthrough U.S. Open victory in 2023 and, according to the WTA, has received more than $11 million in career prize money.
She has endorsement deals with companies that include New Balance, Barilla, Bose, UPS, and Baker Tilly. Gauff is represented by Team8, an agency co-founded by Roger Federer.
Activism
Gauff, who has more than 1.5 million followers on Instagram and more than half a million on TikTok as of September 2023, hasn’t been afraid to use her stature to speak about issues such as climate change and racial injustice.
Gauff said in 2019, “My generation has just decided it was time to speak up on our own about things. I do follow the [climate] movement a lot, and I’m learning about ways we can better change, at least my lifestyle and the way my family live[s].” She shared information online with followers about Juneteenth years before it became a federal holiday in 2021.
In 2020, Gauff spoke at a Black Lives Matter protest in Florida, noting she was protesting against the same injustices her grandmother fought “50-plus years ago.”
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