US Open star Coco Gauff shares truth for name change that baffled fans

Posted by author August 27, 2024 Tennis

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Coco Gauff went by a different name when she first became a star in the tennis and she has now revealed the two stories why.

At the age of 15, Gauff stunned the world of tennis by reaching the fourth round of Wimbledon – beating seven-time Grand Slam winner Venus Williams along the way.

It saw her catapult to stardom, though at the time she went by the name ‘Cori’ instead of ‘Coco’.

Cori is her birth name but she has explained why she now goes by Coco, because of her father.

Coco Gauff has high hopes of winning the US Open

“My dad’s name is Corey,” she said. “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.

Coco Gauff had gone by a different name when she burst on the scene five years ago

“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.”

Gauff has high hopes of winning the US Open this summer, having won the event last summer – the first Grand Slam title she has claimed so far.

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Coco Gauff originally went by ‘Cori’

She dominated Varvara Gracheva in New York on Monday after winning 6-2 6-0 to see her fly into the second round.

The Atlanta-born star will face Tatjana Maria, who has never progressed past the second round at the US Open.