Coco Gauff makes history as the First U.S. tennis player to qualify for the 2024 Olympics

BY KRISHNA MISTRY

The twenty-year-old tennis star, Coco Gauff has secured her spot on the 2024 US Olympic team. Gauff has accumulated enough points to guarantee her spot in the Olympics.

In tennis, the rankings of the men’s and women’s tours determine who will qualify for the Olympics. These rankings are based on the points that players have accumulated from June 11^th, 2023, to June 10^th, 2024, right after the French Open. Then players are drawn for both the men’s and women’s tournament, each with sixty-four players, fifty-six based on their rankings. All nations are limited to four players in each tournament.

So even if Gauff loses all her matches up till June 10^th, she will still have enough points to qualify and compete at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Gauff has shared her excitement as this will be her first Olympics.

Gauff was supposed to attend the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, but unfortunately, she tested positive for COVID-19, which caused her to forfeit her spot on the team. This year, Gauff will be attending the 2024 Paris Olympics as a singles competitor alongside players like Danielle Collins and Frances Tiafoe.

Earlier this year, Gauff had shared that one of her goals was to win an Olympic medal, “One of the goals I wrote down on my vision thing, vision note, in my phone, was to win a medal in the Olympics,” She also shares that though slams titles are amazing to have, she would love to have either a: gold, silver or bronze Olympics medal.

This year, Gauff has attended nine tournaments, some of her recent ones being: the Madrid Open, the Italian Open and the French Open. This year, Gauff made it to the finals in most of the tournaments that she competed in, but unfortunately, she was not able to win.

During the French Open, Gauff qualified for the semi-finals where she competed against Polish tennis player, Iga Świątek. Unfortunately, Gauff lost the first set two to six and lost the second set four to six. This was a controversial game, as Gauff called a change in tennis after the umpire’s decision.

Gauff had a dispute with the umpire, Aurélie Tourte, where Tourte had overruled a call, which benefited Świątek in the semi-final. During the match, the line judge called Świątek’s serve “out,” but the umpire overruled the decision, changing the call to “in,” causing Gauff to break down crying. Gauff was extremely upset and claimed that she did not return the service due to the original call.

After the match, Gauff shared her opinion on this matter with CNN, “Tennis is the only sport where not only we don’t have the VR system, but a lot of times the decisions are made by one person. In other sports there are usually multiple refs making a decision, I know the U.S. Open brought some of it last year, I believe, I know we used it in our doubles at one point. I definitely think at this point it’s almost ridiculous we don’t have it. Not just speaking because that happened to me, but I just think every sport has it.”

During the match, Gauff advocated for herself, which cost her the match. She unfortunately did lose the match, but this would not affect her place on the Olympic team as she has enough points.

The 2024 Olympics will be held in Paris, France from June 26^th to August 11^th, where a total of forty sports will be played. The summer Olympics will have ten thousand and five hundred athletes competing from two hundred and six NOCs. NOCs are the National Olympic Committees. In the Olympic Games, no countries compete, but rather committees pick athletes from their respective countries. Tickets are currently on sale on the Olympics’ official website. Get your tickets soon to guarantee a summer filled with fun activities and amazing experiences.