Coco Gauff shares two stories behind why she doesn’t go by her real name at US Open

Tennis star Coco Gauff went by a different first name when she first emerged in the public eye.

Coco Gauff has revealed that there are two competing stories behind why she no longer goes by her birth name. The 20-year-old burst onto the scene with a run to the Wimbledon fourth round at the age of just 15, by which point she was known as ‘Cori’.

Gauff defeated seven-time Grand Slam winner Venus Williams at the All England Club back in 2019, catapulting her to superstardom. And she quickly set about proving that her moment in the spotlight would not be a one-off.

The youngster made her first Grand Slam quarter-final appearance in 2021, reached her first final the following year, and triumphed at the US Open 12 months ago.

Currently back at Flushing Meadows and hoping to retain her crown, Gauff has explained why she dropped ‘Cori’ and is now known around the world as ‘Coco’. “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. Then he was like, I’ll call my daughter Coco. I don’t know which story is actually true, but they both get pretty bad if I don’t say both of them. I just say that.”

Gauff went on to explain that others are often left confused when they find out her birth name is not what she has become known as worldwide. She said: “Every time I check into hotels or people at the airport, they look at my ID, obviously the airport you book under your real name, 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 breezed into the second round of the US Open on Monday with a dominant 6-2 6-0 win over Varvara Gracheva in New York. Tatjana Maria is next up for the third seed, who has decided to take a relaxed approach to her Flushing Meadows return.

She explained: “Someone commented on my TikTok and was like, ‘You’ve won in life literally and figuratively. There’s no point in putting pressure on yourself during a victory lap.’ I’m just treating this tournament like this.”