Coco Gauff Has Grabbed Our Attention (2024)

Hours after winning her first United States Open tennis championship, in September, Coco Gauff took her Tiffany trophy for a nighttime swirl around the tournament grounds.

Dressed in the summer’s hot color — pink — she lip-synced to the No. 1 single from Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice:

“I’m bad like the Barbie/I’m a doll, but I still want to party.”

At 19, Gauff met the cultural moment and made it her own.

“That’s what great content creators do. They capture the essence of moments,” said Kirby Porter, the founder of New Game Labs, a marketing firm that helps start-ups work with athletes. “First, she embodied that in winning. And then that video? I literally downloaded it, and I was like, ‘Yes, Mood!’ That’s exactly how I feel.”

Born into a new generation of athlete creators, Gauff became the M.C. for Gen Z with her unscripted authenticity at this U.S. Open. She not only raised her own profile, but lifted women’s tennis in need of a new celebrity after the retirement of Serena Williams.

“To me, it’s been in a lull for a couple of years now, without having any personality,” said Zina Garrison, who at Wimbledon in 1990 became the first Black woman to play a major final since Althea Gibson.

“It’s like the Women’s Tennis Association didn’t have an identity, and she’s bringing back the identity,” Garrison said of Gauff.