Coco Gauff‘s US Open ended with a tough semifinal loss, but a few days later, the American had something else to deal with online. Gauff spotted an account pretending to be her and quickly warned fans.
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Gauff was beaten by Elena Rybakina in the semifinals on September 11, with the newly crowned world No. 1 coming back from a set down to win 3-6, 6-4, 6-4. Not long after the loss, Gauff shared her own message with fans on Instagram. But the fake Gauff copied the same message and posted it. Gauff pointed it out as soon as she saw it.
“Fake account. stop pretending to be me. mad weird,” reposted Gauff on the fake X post on September 14.
The profile, @CocoGauff448, had used Gauff’s US Open pictures and had posted the fake content on September 11, the same day as Gauff’s real Instagram post, in which the 2023 US Open champion wrote, “Gave it my all. New York, thank you. It hurts, but I’ll be back.”
Her tournament had still been a strong one even with the disappointing ending. Gauff reached the semifinals for the first time since winning the title in 2023, making this her second-best US Open run.
She came into New York with plenty of momentum after winning the Cincinnati Open and moved through the early rounds without dropping a set. Wins over Paula Badosa and Iva Jovic helped send her into the quarterfinals, where she saved two match points against Mirra Andreeva to reach the last four.
But Rybakina proved too much in the semifinal. The Kazakh had already beaten Gauff in Toronto in August and managed to do it again in New York, on her own packed Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd strongly backing the American.
The loss also ended the American women’s singles challenge at the tournament after Jessica Pegula was beaten by Aryna Sabalenka in the other semifinal.
Gauff still picked up 540 WTA points from her run, having gone out in the fourth round at last year’s US Open. She remained No. 4 in the live rankings and was just 631 points away from Sabalenka at No. 2.
However, Gauff is not the only one who faces such incidents of impersonation, which, even though is a criminal offence, is quite rampant on social media. Popular people, like Gauff, have been an easy target for this due to so many of their images being available online.
Coco Gauff Has Seen Fake Posts Before
This wasn’t the first time Gauff had to deal with something online that wasn’t really from her. In 2024, she was caught by a fake quote about her Australian Open outfit, although that incident ended on a much lighter note.
The post claimed Gauff’s New Balance kit was inspired by Serena Williams’ 2016 Australian Open outfit. It spread widely on X, with the fake quote making it look as though Gauff herself had explained the inspiration behind the outfit. Even Gauff initially fell for it.
“You had me fooled 😭 I even sent the tweet to my agent and I was like ‘I don’t remember ever saying this?’” Gauff replied on the fake X post.
She later clarified that Serena was an inspiration to her, but the outfit wasn’t based on Williams’ old kit. Gauff even joked that she thought she was “going crazy for two mins.”
This time, there wasn’t much to laugh about. The account had used Gauff’s own US Open pictures while presenting itself as her, and three days after the fake post appeared, Gauff made sure her followers knew the truth.
For Gauff, the US Open may have ended on the court on September 11. The online impersonation, however, gave her one more thing to address a few days later.