Coco Gauff is the first U.S. tennis player to mathematically clinch a spot in the Olympic field, setting up for her Olympic debut in Paris.
Gauff has accumulated enough points so that she is guaranteed to be among the top four U.S. women’s singles players at the end of the 12-month Olympic qualifying window, which runs through the end of the French Open in early June.
A nation can qualify no more than four singles players per gender. The U.S. is expected to earn the full four spots for men and women. Players can also qualify separately in doubles.
After Gauff, the highest-ranked American women in singles qualifying are Jessica Pegula, Emma Navarro and Madison Keys.
Gauff made the Olympic team for Tokyo in 2021 at age 17, but announced five days before the Opening Ceremony that she had to withdraw after testing positive for COVID-19.
She would have been the youngest Olympic tennis player since 2000 – when Croatia’s Mario Ancic competed at 16 years old – according to the OlyMADMen.
Gauff won her first Grand Slam singles title at the U.S. Open in September and is ranked third in the world.
In January, Gauff said that, ideally, she wants to play singles, doubles and mixed doubles at the Paris Games.
Olympic tennis will be at Roland Garros, where Gauff was runner-up at the 2022 French Open in singles and doubles.
“One of the goals I wrote down on my vision thing, vision note, in my phone, was to win a medal in the Olympics,” she said in January. “I’ll be completely honest, I don’t really care what event it is in. I feel like a gold, silver or bronze, whatever medal it is, is one of those things it doesn’t matter. Well, it does matter. Obviously I want to win in singles. I feel like I would appreciate it just as much whether it was in singles or doubles. It’s not the same to me as a Slam, I guess, in a way. I just put ‘I want a medal at any of the events.’”
