Coco Gauff earned her title as the Women’s Singles U.S. Open Champion on September 9th, 2023. In her final match, Coco Gauff beat Aryna Sabalenka with scores 2-6, 6-3, and 6-2. Coco Gauff is a nineteen-year-old American tennis player. With her victory and first Grand Slam title, Gauff became the first American player, male or female, to win a U.S. Open since 2017. 

Born to D1 athlete parents, Gauff, many say,  was destined to become an exceptional tennis player. In 2018, Gauff won the junior French Open and the junior US Open. Her rise to fame, however, came in 2019, when she beat superstar Venus Williams in the opening match at Wimbledon. After her recent victory at the US Open, Gauff took home a total of three million dollars in prize money. 

But it wasn’t all smooth sailing. In her first match, Gauff played German tennis player Laura Siegmund. Throughout the match, Gauff noticed that Siegmund had repeatedly exceeded the serve time limit, without any penalty from the chair umpire. As the match went on, Gauff slowly became more frustrated, until finally, when Siegmund claimed she wasn’t ready for Gauff’s serve, Gauff brought the matter directly to the umpire’s attention. “[Siegmund] is never ready when I’m serving, she went over to talk like four times, [and] you only gave her a time violation once,” said Gauff. “How is this fair?” After voicing her anger, Gauff saw overwhelming support from the audience and other sports commentators. “She’s 100 percent right,” said ESPN commentator Patrick McEnroe. As a result of Siegmund’s delay, the match ended up lasting two hours and fifty minutes. 

“I think she was totally right,” said Josie Hertz, junior and captain of the Heschel girls varsity tennis team. “It’s obvious she was just trying to postpone Gauff’s inevitable victory.”