When you’re a standard-bearer for American tennis at Flushing Meadows, every ticket to your match comes with high-stakes demand. But as Coco Gauff gears up for another deep run, her mom Candi decided to handle the ticket bottleneck herself—with a direct message posted to Instagram.
Taking to social media, Coco’s mom issued a PSA aimed at distant acquaintances looking for a free hookup: “Dear Family and friends… Coco’s guest ticket requests have already been accounted for. Unfortunately, I will not be able to hook you up with a ticket… Side note, never ask for more than 2 tickets. Coco is grown now and she has her own friends.”
The commentary resonated immediately across the tour. Fellow American Jessica Pegula chimed in, “Say it louder for the people in the back,” while Danielle Collins added, “Honestly we all need @candigauff in our life.” Former player Ayan Broomfield summed up the locker room consensus: “I wish captions could be retweeted.”
Gauff, who faces Turkey’s Zeynep Sonmez in first-round action, admitted she was caught off guard initially, but ultimately stood by her mom’s viral post. “It was needed,” the two-time Slam champion noted, pointing out that acquaintances she hadn’t heard from in years were “coming out of the woodwork” and requesting up to eight player-box passes.
Fellow American Taylor Fritz voiced the exact same exhaustion when describing the barrage of requests heading into New York. “It’s one of those things you wish you could have someone else do it for you, but ultimately, I’m going to be the one deciding who gets tickets,” Fritz explained. “So it’s something as a player you kind of have to deal with, which is annoying, because you’ve got other things going on. I’m probably getting asked for, like, 40 or 50 tickets.”
Fritz added that he has had to draw the line somewhere: “I’ll reply to the people that, like, should be asking me for tickets, and I won’t reply to the people that should know better than that.”
That sudden squeeze on player allocations mirrors the financial reality outside the gates. Resale markets for this year’s tournament have hit unprecedented territory: basic grounds passes with face values around $65 routinely command over $300 on secondary platforms, while lower-bowl seats inside Arthur Ashe Stadium are regularly fetching four-figure sums.
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