Coco Gauff ready to switch sports in tennis off-season after Olympics

Coco Gauff wants to return to one of her old sports after an endorsement from Noah Lyles.

Coco Gauff is keen to return to another sport during the off-season after getting reinspired by the Olympics.

The world No. 2 entered all three tennis events at Paris 2024 but walked away without a medal.

She’s now back in action at the Canadian Open but has been keeping up with the Olympics. After watching the other athletes, Gauff has already spoken to her dad about trying her old sport.

The 20-year-old was a track athlete during her time in school but ultimately went with tennis and it paid off – she made her Wimbledon debut aged 15 and won her first Grand Slam title last year. But the Olympic Games have given Gauff some FOMO as she continues to follow the track events from afar.

Asked whether she ever wondered what would have happened if she stuck with her other sport, the US Open champion said: “Yeah, I actually do, and, I mean, I do feel like I could have been, 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.

“Track is the only sport I would say that in just because I did do well in middle school like 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 isn’t the only one who can see herself racing at the Olympics. Her mum Candi, a former college athlete, and 100m gold medallist Noah Lyles could see her potential on track. “Yeah, my mom said too, she ran track at Florida State, so she was like, I think if, you know, I think 400 would have been my race,” the American continued.

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