Cocomania has hit the U.S. Open
[This is an excerpt from the Yahoo Sports’ Read and React Newsletter. Subscribe here]
Good morning!
Let's face it: Everyone likes to be in on the ground floor.
It's why we pack clubs to see bands that haven't yet made it big, follow high school football recruits on Rivals.com or scroll through Netflix to discover the next show everyone will be talking about.
Everyone wants to say they were there before something was cool, which is why Coco Gauff's first match at the U.S. Open on Tuesday night drew so much attention.
There's only one problem: Gauff is no longer a well-kept secret.
And she's definitely already cool.
CoCo Takes New York
The 15-year-old from Delray Beach, Florida burst onto the scene earlier this summer when she stunned Venus Williams in the first round and also won her next two matches before falling to seventh-ranked Simona Halep in the fourth round.
Despite still being a teenager on the passenger side of a driver's license, Gauff impressed everyone with her maturity, poise and abundance of personality. In a sport that's desperate for new American blood, she seemingly checked every box and the audience responded. Her matches garnered the highest ratings on ESPN every day she played and her social media followings exploded.
By the time she got to New York this week, New Balance had put her front and center with a social media campaign that's hashtagged #CallMeCoco (as opposed to her given name, Cori).
How far can she go in Flushing Meadows?
Gauff looks like she can be a star, but there's still the fact that she's, you know, just 15. And so it's difficult to know what to expect from her at this U.S. Open. After a slow start in Tuesday's first round, she defeated 18-year-old Anastasia Potapova 3-6, 6-2, 6-4. Read a report from our own Wallace Matthews here.
Gauff will get Timea Babos of Hungary on Thursday and then a likely matchup against defending U.S. Open champ Naomi Osaka on Saturday if she's victorious.
It still feels like we're at least a few years away from Gauff being experienced enough to take home Grand Slam championships.
But who knows? On the off chance that Coco makes a run toward a title on American soil, you don't want to be one of the people who missed out.
