Coco Gauff Is the Tennis World’s New Fashion ‘It Girl’
Tennis phenom Coco Gauff is only 19, but she’s already been making headlines for years. There was her historic defeat of Venus Williams at Wimbledon in 2019, a feat she achieved when she was only 15; another staggering victory over Williams the following year at the Australian Open; becoming the youngest U.S. player to make the Olympic team; and a number of other crowning accomplishments for the woman who’s been dubbed the tennis world’s Bright New Hope.
Even if you’re not an impassioned fan of the sport, elite tennis regularly produces talented young women whose mesmerizing athleticism and poise generate a uniquely fierce glamour. Tennis isn’t Hollywood, but the courts, like red carpets, are electrifying stages upon which to craft a star’s image. Gauff, following in the fashionable footsteps of the Williams sisters and Maria Sharapova before her, is just the latest exemplar of that phenomenon.
The timing couldn’t be more appropriate; the world has recently caught on to the allure of tennis dressing, to an extent. The “tenniscore” trend was everywhere last summer, but the layman’s interpretation of racquet-adjacent attire tends to skew toward retro knits and midi skirts. It’s much more interesting to clock what the real tennis pros are wearing, because if they’re at all aesthetically inclined, they’re challenged with splitting the difference between asserting their creativity and distracting audiences from their play.