As Coco Gauff prepares for her Olympic debut in Paris, she hopes for another first—a victory in her hometown.
Over the weekend, the American tennis phenom “progressed to the last 16 at the Miami Open with a straight-set win over Oceane Dodin.” This is the second time in her career that Gauff is headed to the fourth round at this tournament.
The Delray Beach, Florida native said “It would be really cool to win here at home.”
“I think the best part about winning here is just being able to drive home with the trophy and not have to fly and pack,” Gauff added. “And I’m a Dolphins fan, so maybe if I win here they can win another trophy at the Super Bowl.”
It’s been an incredible year for Gauff. At 20 years-old, she is the youngest player in the country “to hold a top three seed at Miami.” In addition, she’s only had “one loss in her past 23 matches in the United States.”
The reigning US Open Champion is certainly not resting on her laurels. Gauff’s performance in Miami comes on the heels of becoming the first tennis player in the country “to mathematically clinch a spot in the [2024] Olympic field.”
This means that Gauff accumulated “enough points so that she is guaranteed to be among the top four U.S. women’s singles player at the end of the 12-month Olympic qualifying window” which runs through the conclusion of the French Open in June, NBC Sports reports.
To provide more perspective on this accomplishment, “even if Gauff loses every single match between now and June 10, she will still have enough points to qualify” for The Olympics.
Paris has been a long time coming for Gauff who’s had her sights set on the Olympic stage for the past three years. She was originally set to compete in 2021 in Tokyo when she was 17-years-old, but had to withdraw after testing positive for COVID-19.
Even though Gauff usually only plays singles and doubles matches during the season, she intends to participate “in all three events in Paris: Singles, women’s doubles, and mixed doubles, to maximize her dream of winning gold.”
“Ideally, I would want to play all three. We’ll have to see where I fall in the lineup ranking-wise and all of that. That definitely is a priority. The Olympics have been a priority in both singles and doubles,” Gauff said.
Just before she won her opening round at the Australian Open earlier this year, Gauff spoke with reporters stating, “One of the goals I wrote down on my vision thing, vision note, in my phone, was to win a medal in the Olympics.”
“I’ll be completely honest, I don’t really care what event it is in. I feel like a gold, silver or bronze, whatever medal it is, is one of those things it doesn’t matter. Well, it does matter. Obviously I want to win in singles. I feel like I would appreciate it just as much whether it was in singles or doubles,” Gauff said in January. “It’s not the same to me as a Slam, I guess, in a way. I just put ‘I want a medal at any of the events.’”
Gauff isn’t just chasing after wins and medals these days either. Per TODAY, “The tennis superstar has unveiled a renovated tennis court in Delray Beach, Florida,” where she used to train with her father as a young girl. Gauff’s philanthropy is “part of the USTA’s $3 million US Open Legacy Initiative, which was created in honor of Gauff’s 2023 US Open title and is dedicated ‘to the refurbishment of tennis courts across the country.”