(Video) Coco Gauff Interacts With Simone Biles After US Open Win

Coco Gauff found much inspiration to navigate a tough and emotional second round battle at the US Open in the presence of Simone Biles in the crowd.

(Video) Coco Gauff Interacts With Simone Biles After US Open Win

Coco Gauff and Simone Biles after the former's win (via WTA/X/US Open)

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Coco Gauff was overwhelmed with tears after her second-round win at the US Open over Donna Vekic and expressed her gratitude to gymnastics icon Simone Biles for coming to support her. Still adapting to a remodeled serve under new biomechanics coach Gavin MacMillan, the 21-year-old endured a tense battle at the Arthur Ashe Stadium to avenge her third-round defeat to Vekic at last year’s Paris Olympics.

After the win, Gauff and Biles, who were both twinning in black and white outfits, shared a sweet moment together off court. The two-time Grand Slam champion thanked Biles for coming and spoke about how she is such an inspiration. Biles had come to Flushing Meadows last year as well, where she spectated the quarterfinals.

With 11 Olympic medals and 30 World Championship medals, Biles is the most decorated gymnast in history. A journey filled with many ups and downs—from being given up by her birth parents to foster care to speaking up about the injustices she faced along with other survivors of the USA Gymnastics s*x abuse scandal and withdrawing from the Tokyo Olympics citing mental health issues—Biles has fought a tough battle to reach the pinnacle of her sport.

While she is a huge inspiration for Gauff and so many others, Biles has also found inspiration from the tennis world to navigate her career. She had earlier attributed her inspiration to withdraw from the Tokyo Olympics to Naomi Osaka, who withdrew from the Roland Garros and Wimbledon Championships that year for similar reasons.

Coco Gauff’s emotional shoutout to Simone Biles

The first set between Coco Gauff and Donna Vekic was pretty tightly contested, with the tension peaking at 4-4, when the Croatian broke Gauff’s serve after she made her seventh double fault of the set. Gauff, who has been struggling to find her rhythm since the grass swing, sat on the sidelines during the break, covered her face with a towel, and broke into tears.

Coco Gauff Simone Biles US Open 2025
Coco Gauff, Simone Biles (images via US Open)

The young American returned with a renewed focus, breaking back to take the set to a tiebreak. In the tiebreak, she narrowly edged Vekic 7-5, winning the set after a daunting 1 hour and 10 minutes. The second set was more one-sided, with Gauff making just one double fault, five unforced errors and facing only one break point, which she saved. With a backhand volley winner, she sealed the victory 7-6(7-5), 6-2. Overcome with emotion, she gave a shoutout to Simone Biles in her on-court interview:

I saw her… and honestly, she helped me pull it out. I was thinking like, if she can, you know, go on a six-inch beam and do that with all the pressures of the world, then I can hit the ball in this 75, I don’t know how big this court is…

Biles is a two-time Olympic bronze medalist in balance beam and a four-time gold medalist in this discipline at the World Championships. She has a balance beam dismount named after her too. The beam is also surprisingly not six but four inches wide, and gymnasts compete on this extremely narrow apparatus for 90 seconds. Speaking about Biles, Gauff further added:

I saw her late in the second getting interviewed late by the ESPN, and, yeah, it brought me a bit of calm just knowing her story and all the things she went through mentally. So she’s an inspiration surely. Her presence did definitely help me today.

In the next round at the US Open, Gauff will face Magdalena Frech. She has a 2-0 head-to-head record against the Pole, with both her victories coming in straight sets.

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