When we first published this FRONTPAGE interview with the wickedly talented Coco Gauff, she was 17 years old, and the 23rd best tennis player in the world. Now, as most of the sports-viewing world knows, the 19-year-old is ranked 3rd, and fresh off an incredible win at this year’s US Open — making her the first American teenager to do so since Serena Williams in 1999. When we talked to her, Gauff was making the rounds in NYC, reflecting on a recent racket-smash incident (“We should embrace emotion, and the sport should be more open to players sharing their emotions on the court,” she told us. “Everyone has them”), and a collaboration with New Balance.
Coco Gauff is hugging her tennis racquet. It’s a muggy afternoon in New York City, and she’s standing in the center of a portable tennis court in the middle of Hudson River Park’s Pier 72. A white and black Head Graphene racquet is cradled between the 17-year-old’s long arms, the way a child might hold onto an oversized plush animal or a best friend. In any other circumstance, it would look like a tender pose, but Gauff, currently one of the most successful teenagers in the world, is surrounded by a small flock of middle-aged women in sports dresses and her stance looks like a subconscious attempt at self-defense. The women, who are at least twice (but most likely three times) her age are coo-ing at Gauff in high-pitched tones as they prep her to shoot video content for this event’s sponsor, American Express. The company has set up over a dozen of these temporary courts ahead of the US Open, just for card members, which will commence the following week some 10 miles away in Flushing, Queens.
Gauff squeezes the racquet through a dozen or so takes of her thanking the company (of which she’s too young to be a member) in variously smiling editions. “These Amex courts are super nice! I love playing tennis in New York City,” she says, over the screech of some seagulls overhead. For the last…
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