The comparisons to Serena Williams started early for Coco Gauff, who won a national tennis tournament at age 8 and became the world’s No. 1 junior player at 14. By the time she beat Venus Williams in the first round at Wimbledon in 2019—and became the youngest player to reach the fourth round at a Grand Slam since 1996—she was regularly being labeled “the future of tennis.”That future may have arrived. Gauff, now 18, will play for the French Open women’s singles title in Saturday’s final against top-ranked Iga Swiatek, a phenom herself at just 21. The next day, Gauff will take the court alongside fellow American Jessica Pegula in the women’s doubles final against Caroline Garcia and Kristina Mladenovic. A win on Saturday would secure $2.4 million for Gauff, who has not dropped a set in singles at Roland Garros and is seeking her first major title; she and Pegula would share another $620,000 with a victory Sunday. Even if she loses both matches, those prizes will be $1.2 million and $310,000 before taxes. That’s a pretty impressive haul for a player who only recently graduated from high school. But Gauff is already raking in cash, with $3.2 million in career prize money since she turned pro in 2018. And she stands to make much more. Off the court, Forbes estimates she is making at least $4 million annually (before taxes and agents’ fees) from sponsors that include New Balance apparel, Head tennis rackets and Barilla pasta. Over the last three months, she has unveiled partnerships with retailer American Eagle and Autograph, the NFT company cofounded by Tom Brady. Brands came clamoring early, hoping to lock up a player who followed her success at the junior level by becoming the WTA Tour’s youngest singles champion since 2004 at age 15 and is now the youngest player in the WTA’s top 100, ranked 23rd. In 2019, Forbes reported that Gauff was already making $1 million from endorsements as a 15-year-old. But her agent, Alessandro Barel Di Sant Albano of Team8, and her parents—father Corey, who coaches her, and mother Candi, who homeschooled her—have declined many of the opportunities that have arisen, taking a long-term approach to Gauff’s career on and off the court. Deals with prestigious brands like Rolex and Microsoft made sense after her 2019 breakout, but there is care being taken not to overcommercialize Gauff at this young age or add to the pressure she acknowledged feeling in a 2020 post for Behind The Racquet. Her focus is on tennis, and her newly beefed-up playing schedule, now that she has turned 18 and is no longer subject to WTA restrictions on how many tournaments young players can enter each year. Even with those limitations, she is already knocking on the door of the world’s highest-paid female athletes, with the cutoff for the top ten set at $5.7 million last year by WNBA star Candace Parker.


All data is taken from the source: http://forbes.com
Article Link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/brettknight/2022/06/03/coco-gauff-french-open-tennis/


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