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Coco Gauff Opens Up on Her Down to Earth Upbringing With an Ode to Her Father

Published 03/14/2024, 5:31 AM EDT

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Coco Gauff is one of the few players who has used the popularity she has reached to speak out about the necessary changes that the world needs. The American is rather outspoken amidst a sea of tennis players who are reserved. The 20-year-old recently revealed that it was because of her upbringing that she could afford to have an outspoken nature.

The US Open champion recently beat Elise Mertens and managed to bagel the Belgian player in the first set and shut her down quickly in the second set as well. After the match, she sat down for an interview, where she talked about her upbringing. She said she felt that her family helped her be a person who could touch up on important issues.

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Coco Gauff said, “So I think that’s just more where I come from and just the people that raised me always taught me to uplift the other people around me. I was taught from a very young age of the privilege that I have, and the way that my dad grew up was definitely not, you know, not the best childhood.”

Further opening up about the values she received from her father, Gauff said, “So he always instilled that into me and always instilled how to uplift other people. Because it took, you know, one person to help uplift him and that made a difference in his life which by-product made a difference in my life and maybe I can continue that cycle with some other kid.”

Before talking about her upbringing, Gauff talked about the happiness she felt from being able to rise to a platform that helped her reach out to the masses. 

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‘Regardless of how life went’ – Coco Gauff talks about one of the ‘main things’ she always wanted to do

Before she talked about her upbringing, Gauff was asked if she was able to derive any satisfaction from the fact that she could use her status as a public figure in several different ways.

Gauff said “Yeah, definitely. I think for me, that’s just one of the main things that I knew I wanted to do, obviously, since I was young. 15 was the first time I kind of really spoke about it. Yeah, I just knew I was going to do that regardless of how my life went, even if pro tennis wasn’t the way for me, I would have been very active in other areas of, you know, life and the world in general.”

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The US Open champion talked about social issues that various groups of people face around the world. She also thanked her parents for helping her develop a strong mentality for becoming a great tennis player and using the platform to speak out on more matters.

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Written by:

Ripunjay Gaba

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Ripunjay Gaba, a tennis enthusiast-turned-journalist at EssentiallySports, found his way from freelance sports journalism to the publishing house in ES. Here, his writing canvas encompasses the game specifics while finding poetic resonance in covering major sporting events. Ripunjay, a perpetual upgrader, uses avid reading to bring varied flavor to his Tennis reporting.
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Edited by:

Shudh Mukherjee