Coco Gauff Shares How She Was Desperate to Watch Venus Williams Play at the Citi Open

Venus Williams competed at the revamped US Open mixed doubles event alongside her partner Reilly Opelka, bowing out in Round 1.

Coco Gauff Shares How She Was Desperate to Watch Venus Williams Play at the Citi Open

Venus Williams and Coco Gauff (via X/The Tennis Letter)

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Coco Gauff shared a personal moment of how she was desperate to watch Venus Williams’ match at the Washington Open last month. She revealed that she had to cook for herself and her boyfriend, though she rarely cooked, just to get comfortable enough to watch the seven-time Grand Slam champion play.

Williams accepted a wildcard for the tournament in Washington, and it was her first event since the Miami Open in March 2024. Also, she last won a singles match at the Cincinnati Open back in August 2023. The tournament organizers were heavily criticized for handing her a wildcard but she proved them wrong by beating Peyton Stearns 6-3, 6-4.

The 45-year-old became the oldest player to win a tour-level match in more than two decades. Martina Navratilova is the oldest player at 47 to win a singles match, having done that at the 2004 Wimbledon Championships. Williams, later fell to fifth-seeded Magdalena Frech in the second round at the Washington Open.

But before the historic win, Williams partnered with fellow compatriot Hailey Baptiste in the doubles, beating Eugenie Bouchard and Clervie Ngounoue 6-3, 6-1 in the first round. Her performance in Washington was enough for the Cincinnati Open organizers to have her as a wildcard for the WTA 1000 event. But at the tournament, she lost to Jessica Bouzas Maneiro in the first round.

In an interview with PEOPLE, Gauff revealed that before Williams took to the court to play Stearns, she was so desperate to see her play. She added that her presence in the WTA is a display of her longevity in the sport:

I never cook, but I made dinner that night… Dinner and everything because I was so excited to watch her play. That was the first match I’ve been excited to watch in a while. My boyfriend was with me and I was just like, ‘Oh my gosh, I can’t wait.’ She was after Ben Shelton, and I was like, ‘Ben needs to wrap this up. I can’t wait to see Venus, I think for women’s tennis it’s great just to see the longevity that we can have, especially in a sport like tennis.

Venus Williams has been a wildcard for the US Open singles event, which kicks off on August 24. But before that, she competed at the mixed doubles tournament that started on Tuesday (August 19) and partnered with Reilly Opelka. The pair faced Karolina Muchova and Andrey Rublev in the first round, but were ousted.

Coco Gauff’s poor run of form continues at the Cincinnati Open

Coco Gauff has not been at her best level on the court since winning the Roland Garros in June. In fact, the American star has won just 5 of her last 9 matches since the Grand Slam event and has not advanced to a tournament quarter-final since then. She opened her North America hard-court swing at the Canadian Open but lost to eventual champion Victoria Mboko in straight sets.

Coco Gauff (via X/Ground Press)
Coco Gauff (via X/Ground Press)

She arrived at the Cincinnati Open in a bid to redeem herself after her poor displays in Montreal. She did well by beating Wang Xinyu and Lucia Bronzetti en route to the quarter-finals and gained a walkover after Dayana Yastremska, who beat her in Wimbledon, withdrew from the tournament due to injury.

She faced Jasmine Paolini in the quarter-finals and won just 31 percent of her second serve points, hitting 16 double faults. That led to her losing against the Italian star 6-2, 4-6, 3-6 in the WTA 1000 tournament. With Iga Swiatek becoming the champion in Cincinnati, she has now overtaken Gauff in the WTA rankings.

The Polish star is now World No.3, while Gauff has dropped to No.3. However, with just 59 points separating Swiatek and Gauff, both players will fight until the end of the season for that spot. But Gauff will hope to get back to her best form ahead of the US Open, which she won in 2023.

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