Coco Gauff has previously revealed intriguing tales behind her decision to ditch her birth name ‘Cori’. The tennis sensation, who made headlines at just 15 with a stunning run to Wimbledon‘s fourth round, has been known as ‘Coco’ since defeating Venus Williams at the prestigious tournament in 2019, launching her into the limelight.
Since then, she’s won the US Open title in 2023 and reached two French Open finals, including this year where she faces Aryna Sabalenka on Saturday afternoon.
Last year, Gauff shared the origins of her nickname: “My dad’s name is Corey,” she revealed. “And so I guess, you know, they didn’t want me to get my dad and me confused when my mom is like yelling at one of us in the house.”
“With Coco there are two stories. My aunt says she came up with calling me Coco. But then my dad said, when he was younger, people used to call me Co. Then he was like, I’ll call my daughter Coco. I don’t know which story is actually true, but they both get pretty bad if I don’t say both of them. I just say that.
“Every time I check into hotels or people at the airport, they look at my ID, obviously the airport you book under your real name, but the person sometimes will recognize me and they’ll be like, ‘Wait, are you Coco?’, I’m like, ‘Yeah, it’s just a nickname. I’m not somebody that looks like her’.
“In the hotel, sometimes, like, ‘Well, we don’t have your room’, I’m like, ‘It’s probably under Coco, not Cori’, and then they’ll do that.”
Sailing through to the second round of the US Open with a resounding 6-2 6-0 victory against Varvara Gracheva in New York, Gauff is set to face Tatjana Maria next. The number three seed is adopting a laid-back stance this tournament, inspired by a comment on her TikTok: “Someone commented on my TikTok and was like, ‘You’ve won in life literally and figuratively. There’s no point in putting pressure on yourself during a victory lap.’ I’m just treating this tournament like this.”
Content Source: www.express.co.uk