15-year-old American Coco Gauff gets US Open wild-card entry
Cori Gauff returns the ball as she and Caty McNally played against Fanny Stollar, of Hungary, and Maria Sanchez in the women’s doubles final at the Citi Open tennis tournament Saturday, Aug. 3, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
Coco Gauff will get a chance to try for an encore: The 15-year-old from Florida received a wild-card entry Tuesday for the U.S. Open’s main draw.
It will be Gauff’s second Grand Slam tournament. She made a magical run to the fourth round at Wimbledon last month after getting a wild card into the qualifying rounds there.
Ranked just 313th at the time, Gauff became the youngest player to qualify for Wimbledon, upset five-time champion Venus Williams in the first round and wound up losing at the All England Club to eventual title winner Simona Halep.
Gauff is currently No. 140 in the WTA rankings.
Age restrictions set up by the women’s professional tour limit the number of tournaments someone who is 15 can enter and the number of wild-card invitations she can be offered — and Gauff already has accepted three wild cards elsewhere. But according to the WTA, the U.S. Open — which, as a Grand Slam tournament, is not overseen by the WTA or ATP tours — essentially can choose to ignore the eligibility rule and offer Gauff a wild card.
Among the other players receiving wild cards from the U.S. Tennis Association on Tuesday for the women’s field at Flushing Meadows were 2011 U.S. Open champion Sam Stosur — an Australian who was granted that country’s reciprocal berth in the field — and 17-year-old Caty McNally, an American who won the doubles title with Gauff and reached the singles semifinals at the Citi Open in Washington this month.
The draw for the U.S. Open is Aug. 22, and play in the year’s last major tennis tournament begins Aug. 26.
Other women’s wild cards went to Francesca Di Lorenzo, Whitney Osuigwe, Kristie Ahn and Katie Volynets of the U.S., along with 16-year-old Diane Parry of France, who got her country’s reciprocal invitation.
Di Lorenzo, a 22-year-old from Ohio, is a past NCAA doubles champion now ranked 128th. Osuigwe, a 17-year-old from Florida, won a French Open junior title and is ranked 105th. Ahn, a 27-year-old from New Jersey, finished first in the USTA’s wild-card challenge, while Volynets, a 17-year-old from California, won the 18s national championship.
Nine wild cards for qualifying were also awarded, including to five-time Grand Slam doubles champion Bethanie Mattek-Sands, 14-year-old Reese Brantmeier of Wisconsin, Vicky Duval, Shelby Rogers and Pan Am Games medalist Caroline Dolehide.
