Although tennis is not the most popular sport, especially among teenagers, this year’s U.S. Open tournament not only turned some heads but brought a boost of popularity to the sport, especially from young people.
The US Open Tennis Championship, more commonly known as the U.S. Open, is an annual tournament held in New York every year and is the fourth and final Grand Slam tournament. After the Australian Open, French Open, and Wimbledon, the U.S. Open starts in late August. This year’s Grand Slam started similarly to the previous years until 19-year-old Coco Gauff started to gain attention from tennis and non-tennis fans alike.
People who follow tennis may have already known Gauff, as she’s been to a Grand Slam Final once before, but she gained worldwide popularity due to a viral incident with Laura Siegemund in the first round. Gauff felt that Siegemund was taking too much time in between points and decided to call the umpire out for not giving her a violation. In tennis, players have 25 seconds to serve the ball and whoever is serving sets the pace of the game. For ⅔ of the match, Siegemund was never ready for Coco’s serve. In addition, during set changeovers, Siegemund was sitting, which is also against the rules. 19-year-old Gauff continued to speak up about the lack of fairness in the game and the clip of her talking to the umpire went viral.
With 11.5 million views and counting, many people took Gauff’s side and continued to watch her and support her throughout the rest of the U.S. Open. Gauff made it to the final for the second time in her professional career and ultimately ended up winning the title for Women’s Singles Champion, which also won her her first Grand Slam title. Gauff is the youngest American Grand Slam champion since Serena Williams in 1999.
“Like a month ago, I won a 500 title, and people said I would stop at that. Two weeks ago, I won a 1000 title, and people were saying that was the biggest I was going to get. So three weeks later, I’m here with this trophy right now,” says Gauff
As the tournament went on, other young players like Ben Shelton gained the spotlight, due to his iconic “hanging up the phone” celebration in a win against Frances Tiafoe. The celebration was even recreated by Novak Djokovic, who went on to win the U.S. Open. Shelton though, wasn’t fazed, “As a kid growing up, I always learned that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so that’s all I have to say about that.”
