By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Friday August 9, 2024

Coco Gauff would have loved to stick around the Paris Olympics a little longer, but the American made the most of the time she had at the games, and came back to the US with a renewed sense of perspective about her own career.

Talking to reporters after her 6-2, 6-2 win over Wang Yafan on Thursday at the National Bank Open in Toronto (she will face Diana Shnaider on Friday in round of 16 action), Gauff talked about linking up with many of the track and field stars of Team USA, and her own affinity for sprinting.



“It gives me a lot of inspiration,” Gauff said when asked if being around elite track athletes such as Gabby Thomas and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone had energized her. “Seeing Sydney (who won the 400 metre hurdles, and then Tara (Davis-Woodhall), she won the long jump, and then, Gabby Thomas winning the 200 (meter), and Sha'Carri (Richardson) winning silver, just so many people that I got to talk to.”

Gauff, the current World No.2 and 2023 US Open champion, says their performances are inspiring to her, and they also help her realize that her peak years as an elite athlete may well indeed be in front of her.

“It definitely is inspiring, just seeing how all of them went through respective downs in their careers and to be able to find it, and each of them going through different mental and physical challenges.

“And it also puts perspective to, of my age. A lot of them are between 24 to 27 [age] range, so I guess it puts it into perspective.”

Gauff says that conversations with the athletes has helped her trust in her own process.

“You want things to happen now,” she said. “I think I just learned to just trust in my training and trust in the journey, just with talking with them and learning about their stories. Sometimes when you do well young you just want everything to happen now. All of them at some point did well young, just because they're so good, but I just learned to trust the journey and trust maturity and [know that] your game is going to reach its final form in a few years.”



Gauff, who is ferociously fast on court, has spent time running track and field, and sometimes wonders how well she could have done if she had chosen that sport over tennis.

“I don't know if I would have been as good as I was in tennis in track, but I strongly feel like if I would have trained I could have been an Olympian,” she said. “Track is the only sport I would say that in, just because I did do well in middle school, never training, I didn't go to one track practice, and I won all my races except two, and both were against the same girl and she was in 8th grade.”

Gauff, whose mother ran track at Florida State, pictures herself running the 400, but not the hurdles.

“Noah Lyles said he saw me as like a 400 hurdler, but I'm kind of scared of [hurdles], so, yeah, I don't think I would have been like that. But definitely 400 or longer would have been my thing.”