Last Updated: October 28, 2023, 01:30 IST
NEW YORK: American tennis is in good arms with Coco Gauff, U.S. Open event director Stacey Allaster has advised Reuters because the charismatic teen appears to be like to finish her breakthrough 12 months on a excessive.
Gauff mounted a fierce comeback to beat Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka within the U.S. Open remaining, claiming her first Grand Slam title and her place in American tennis royalty.
The triumph got here amid a 16-match profitable streak for Gauff that ended within the China Open semi-final final month by the hands of previous foe Iga Swiatek of Poland.
“The next generation has arrived and stood on the shoulders of the great Serena Williams and Venus Williams,” mentioned Allaster, the chief govt, Professional Tennis, with the USTA.
“It feels like she’s been around for a long time. She’s only 19… She is special. She is humble and kind, she’s hardworking. And she is very, very focused on winning.”
The 19-year-old proved as charming to followers because the idols who impressed her rising up as 3.4 million viewers tuned in for the U.S. Open remaining on ESPN, making it the most-watched main girls’s championship ever on the community.
The second was made all of the sweeter for Allaster, the previous WTA head who gained the Women’s Sports Foundation’s Billie Jean King Leadership Award this 12 months after the U.S. Open celebrated its fiftieth anniversary of gender equal prize cash.
It is a landmark that has but to be replicated throughout all of tennis because the WTA introduced earlier this 12 months a “pathway to handing out equal prize money” at mixed WTA 1000 and 500 occasions, ranging from 2027.
“It’s certainly a proof point of the value of women’s sport, of women’s tennis, when the fans are showing up in the stadiums and loving it,” she mentioned. “And then we know the fans are showing up and consuming on ESPN and around the world.”
World quantity three Gauff will subsequent compete within the WTA Finals in Cancun, with the season-ending event kicking of the group stage on Sunday.
“I am looking forward to seeing how Coco performs with, you know, a greater spotlight on her. She’s had a spotlight on her for a long time. This is a marathon. It’s not a sprint,” mentioned Allaster. “We have seen her resilience.”
(This story has not been edited by News18 workers and is revealed from a syndicated information company feed – Reuters)
