Coco Gauff to be flag bearer for Staff USA at Paris Olympics

Coco Gauff will grow to be the primary tennis participant in historical past to behave as Staff USA flag bearer when she joins LeBron James on the opening ceremony for the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Gauff, 20, is the world No. 2 and defending U.S. Open champion. She may even grow to be the youngest American flag bearer in Olympic historical past, overtaking Cindy Nelson, who fulfilled the function on the 1976 Innsbruck Winter Video games in Austria.

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How does Coco Gauff resolve an issue like Iga Swiatek?

Gauff is representing Staff USA within the girls’s singles, doubles, and combined doubles, becoming a member of world No. 6 Jessica Pegula within the girls’s doubles and males’s No. 11 Taylor Fritz within the combined occasion.

She had initially been chosen to play within the Tokyo Video games, however a COVID-19 analysis pressured her to sit down out in 2021.

I simply wish to say thanks to my fellow workforce usa olympians/athletes for voting and selecting me for this unimaginable honor to be the flag bearer for the opening ceremony ❤️. Thanks a lot. I’m extremely honored. 🥹🇺🇸
— Coco Gauff (@CocoGauff) July 24, 2024

The favourite for the singles title is world No. 1 Iga Swiatek, who has received the final three French Open titles at Stade Roland Garros in Paris, the venue for the Olympic tennis occasions. Swiatek has an 11-1 head-to-head file in opposition to Gauff, together with a current victory within the semifinals of this yr’s French Open in June.

Gauff, who received the ladies’s doubles title at that match with associate Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic, will hope to defeat her throughout the Video games, the place Siniakova will play with Wimbledon champion and 10-time doubles Grand Slam winner Barbora Krejcikova.

The attracts for the tennis occasions will happen Thursday at 11 a.m. in Paris/5 a.m. ET.