U.S. Open: Coco Gauff eases pressure of title defense with first-round victory
Coco Gauff returns against Varvara Gracheva at the U.S. Open on Monday. Credit: Errol Anderson
Some athletes look to their coach for inspiration. Others rely on parents or spouses. Coco Gauff, like any self-respecting member of Gen-Z, is fine with crediting a stranger on TikTok for helping to change her perspective heading into the U.S. Open.
After opening her U.S. Open title defense with a 6-2, 6-0 win over Varvara Gracheva of France on Monday, Gauff told the crowd at Arthur Ashe Stadium that a response on a post she made on TikTok helped alleviate the immense pressure she had been feeling heading back to the tournament where she won her first Grand Slam last year.
“Somebody comments on my TikTok and they were just like ‘you win in life literally and figuratively and there’s no point feeling pressure on yourself,’ ” the 20-year-old said. “So I am treating this tournament like that.
“If you defend something, that means you won something,” Gauff said. “If you did it, that means you can do it again. Whether I do it again this year or not, I’m going to do it again. Whether it’s 2024 or not, I will do it again.”
Gauff, ranked No. 3 in the world, went from promising young star to sports-transcending celebrity when she won the U.S. Open last year.
In the past 12 months, she has inked endorsement after endorsement and was ranked by Forbes as the highest-paid female athlete in 2023 with $22.7 million in earnings.
More than 29 million viewers tuned in last month to watch as Gauff joined LeBron James as a flag bearer for the United States at the Paris Olympics, making her the youngest athlete ever to carry an American flag at the opening ceremony.
Gauff said after the match that the “last couple of weeks have been a little tough.”
It’s actually been more than a couple of weeks.
After making it to the semifinal round in the Australian Open and French Open, Gauff was eliminated in the fourth round at Wimbledon and was visibly upset at her coach, Brad Gilbert. She then bowed out in the third round of the Olympics in a match in which she broke down in tears after disputing a call with an umpire.
As she moved back to hardcourts to get ready for the U.S. Open, Gauff still seemed to be searching. She lost her second match in Toronto and her first in Cincinnati 10 days ago and her ranking dropped from No. 2 to No. 3.
This is quite a contrast with her lead-up to the 2023 U.S. Open, when she won 11 of 12 matches and titles in Washington and Cincinnati before arriving in Queens.
For a good half-decade, women’s tennis has been desperate for a big-name star to take the mantle from Serena Williams.
Initially, it looked as if Naomi Osaka would be the one. After winning U.S. Open titles in 2018 and 2020, Osaka has twice stepped away from the sport, once for mental health reasons and once to have a baby.
When Gauff became the first American teenager to win a title at the Open since Williams did it in 1999, fans were only too happy to anoint her as the future of the game.
Gauff said she had felt “a lot of pressure” coming into the U.S. Open but now, after reading the TikTok comment, is making an effort to be kinder to herself.
There were some confidence-building moments in her first match Monday, which was a little more competitive in the first set than the score indicated. Gauff faced break points in her first three service games, saving six in total. She seemed to gain confidence as the match went on and won her final nine games.
“If I played this last week, I feel like it would be really difficult, but my perspective has changed a lot over seven days,” she said. “I was just trying to enjoy the match. I enjoyed it today and obviously it was straightforward, but even if it was tighter, these are the moments you live for.
“I am just happy to be back on this court and playing like I did.”
Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.