Coco Gauff Is Loving Life At The Paris Olympic Games

PARIS — Coco Gauff won her second round women’s singles tennis match today at the Olympic Games Paris 2024, taking it 6-1, 6-1, against Argentina’s Maria Lourdes Carle. She and Jessica Pegula also won their first round doubles match on Saturday.

But Gauff — currently the number-two ranked tennis player in the world — is enjoying more than just great tennis here in Paris. It’s the first Olympic Games for the 2023 U.S. Open champion; she had to pull out of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games after testing positive for Covid-19 on the eve of the Games. And she is soaking in every moment that she can here in Paris.

Here’s a synopsis of what could be called Coco At The Olympic Games.

On Friday evening, Gauff shared Team USA’s flag bearing duties with basketball legend LeBron James. Asked if she waved the flag for the entire six-kilometer Opening Ceremony route on the Seine — an effort that could have tired out her arms for tennis — she replied with a smile, “We did wave it a little bit, but I let LeBron take most of the weight, and I just put my left arm on the flag.”

“I knew that he would be their prime person, so I was just like let him do his job, and I’ll just hold it there,” she added, as if she is not a star in her own right. “With the rain, we got tired of waving it, so we just kind of used the boat to help us balance the weight. I had a great experience.”

It was the first time Gauff had met James, and the basketball legend was 30 minutes late to board the boat.

“He's obviously LeBron, so he can do what he wants,” joked Gauff, “but I'm a very punctual person. … But they were all cool. They were all nice. But definitely, the basketball team carries themselves like they are the best, which they are, and so I respect that.”

James isn’t the only Olympic legend Gauff has met since she arrived in Paris last Wednesday.

On Team USA, Gauff has met sprinters Sha’Carri Richardson and Noah Lyles, gymnasts Simone Biles and Suni Lee, swimmer Katie Ledecky and “almost all the track team.” She hopes to soon meet swimmer Caeleb Dressel, who won five gold medals at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.

“It's crazy just being with the athletes in the village,” said Gauff. “All of us rooting for each other when we obviously don't know each other, but it feels like we've known each other for a long time. I was hanging with some of the track athletes last night.”

In a show of support, some of those track athletes came to support Coco in her first-round singles match yesterday.

Like college, the athletes are randomly assigned roommates in the Olympic Village. Gauff’s tennis teammates have moved to other quarters during the Olympic tournament, but Gauff has chosen to remain in the Village. She’s now sharing an apartment with Team USA archer Catalina GNoriega and table tennis player Lily Zhang, who also won yesterday and came in late last night along with Gauff.

“It’s really cool learning about new sports,” said Gauff, who’s become interested in fencing at these Olympic Games. “Every Olympics, I try to learn the rules to a new sport. I got a little bit of fencing knowledge [from Lauren Scruggs, Olympic silver medalist in women’s foil] and am enjoying watching it.”

At every Olympic Games, everyone from spectators to officials to athletes and volunteers like to collect pins. Every country, sponsor, you name it, has their own pin for the Games, and people eagerly exchange them.

After her second round match against Carle, Gauff recorded a reel for Instagram showing her latest pin: A Paris 2024 Snoop Dogg pin that she received this morning from the man himself.

U.S. Olympic tennis team coach Kathy Rinaldi might be jealous. Before the Paris Games started, Rinaldi admitted that she was partly focused on her “pin game”— collecting as many cool pins as she can. She might have to arm-wrestle Gauff for the Snoop Dogg treasure.

The red clay courts at Roland-Garros are renowned for hosting the French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament every spring. Gauff feels comfortable playing on clay — “my game suits it,” she said, and she has the results to prove it. She made the French Open finals in 2022, the semifinals in 2024, and won the doubles title in 2024. So her chances for making an Olympic medal round in singles, women’s doubles (with Jessica Pegula), and mixed doubles (with Taylor Fritz) are good.

Asked how the Olympic atmosphere at Roland-Garros differs from the French Open, Gauff noted the patriotism.

“It's kind of weird seeing American flags in a crowd,” she commented. “I would say that [U.S. tennis fans] are not usually that patriotic. [In the French Open], when I play against Poland or Romania, those countries usually always have their flags, whether it's a team event or more of individuals. So it is weird seeing American flags in a crowd. I hope tennis fans can bring that [patriotism] into the regular tournaments.”

She also noted a different atmosphere during her second round singles match against Carle.

“Even at 6-1, 5-1, the crowd was still very much into the match, which normally isn't the case in most tournaments,” she noted. “Everybody's trying to root for their player hard.

“Obviously, it'll suck if you lose, but I feel like there's a sense of pride, especially me being a first time Olympian. It’s one of the things I wanted to check off my list. So everything is just a plus from here.”

An award-winning freelance writer based in Vermont, Peggy Shinn is in Paris covering her eighth Olympic Games. She has contributed to TeamUSA.org since its inception in 2008.