Tennis - Toronto 2024 - Coco Gauff: "I did 2 dreams in Paris: taking selfies with Nadal and Murray"
Malgré des résultats décevants aux Jeux olympiques de Paris 2024, avec des éliminations précoces dans les trois catégories (huitième de finale en simple, deuxième tour en double dames et double mixte), Coco Gauff a su tirer profit de sa semaine parisienne pour réaliser quelques rêves. Elle a notamment pris des selfies avec Rafael Nadal et Andy Murray. En outre, elle a eu l'opportunité de côtoyer les plus grands athlètes américains et de porter le drapeau des États-Unis aux côtés de LeBron James lors de la cérémonie d'ouverture.
Video : @TennisCanada
Video : @TennisCanada
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00:00One thing I didn't expect, I didn't expect for other athletes to ask me for photos or
00:08anything, which was weird because my teammates, you know, Taylor, he was like, you won the
00:14US Open.
00:15I was like, I don't know.
00:16I don't know.
00:17It was just very weird.
00:18I wasn't expecting, again, the Village to be people coming up to ask photos with me
00:23and some people I looked up to.
00:25The coolest interaction, there was a lot of cool ones.
00:27I met Katie Ledecky in the elevator and Emma said that she was eating like ground beef
00:33and sour cream, but I'm pretty sure it was yogurt and granola, even on a debate like
00:38that.
00:39I hadn't seen Katie since to confirm whether it was sour cream and yogurt or, I mean, sour
00:44cream and ground beef or yogurt and granola.
00:48I had a talk to Noah Liles, which was really cool.
00:51I got to, I took a lot of gems from him, I think, you know, it was a natural conversation,
00:56but, you know, he's the type of person that I think you can just learn a lot about confidence
01:01and believing in yourself from.
01:03And obviously, I met Sha'Carri, I met Simone Bowles, I met Suni Lee, there's just a list
01:08goes on and on.
01:09It was very cool.
01:10Obviously, the whole U.S. men's basketball team, so yeah, I could sit here for like hours
01:15talking about all the cool people that I met.
01:18And I finally got a picture with Rafa.
01:19I traded pens with him.
01:21I didn't post the picture, but I probably should have.
01:23I traded pens with Rafa.
01:25Carlos didn't have any pens, so I didn't, I didn't let him be in the selfie, so it's
01:29just me and Rafa.
01:31And who else?
01:32Oh, I finally got a pic with Andy, which I always wanted to ask.
01:36So I got the, the two goals were to get a picture with them too.
01:41So I got, those were my two goals.
01:42And ironically, they were tennis players, so I could have gotten at any tournament.
01:45But I don't know, I just felt maybe, I don't know, I had the confidence.
01:48I was like, it's Olympics, you know, other athletes were asking them, so I felt not like
01:53out of the ordinary, whereas here, they probably don't get asked as much at tennis tournaments.
01:58You know, you have so many brand endorsements and everything, and you're probably one of
02:01the highest paid athletes, and congratulations on that, first of all.
02:06And you've been so vocal about, you know, equal pay in a lot of places, and with the
02:10growth of women's sports right now, where do you see your role is in this space?
02:15And how do you see that?
02:16Because a lot of people see you as a role model.
02:17Yeah, I think for me, it's just knowing your worth and then standing on it.
02:22And if anything, like I've learned in the past Olympics, it's really the female athletes
02:27that are getting most of the attention when it comes to media.
02:29Like all I'm hearing about is the women's gymnastics, women's swimming.
02:33So I think it's just important that we continue as, you know, athletes who, in sports like
02:38tennis, continuing to push that, because I will say tennis is the forefront of equal
02:42pay.
02:43And we're not there in every tournament, but in the slams, it's a big step.
02:47And so I think as tennis players, we should also recognize, be grateful for people like
02:52Billie Jean King and Venus Williams in the original nine for setting that standard so
02:56long ago.
02:58And I think through tennis, we can also push that into other sports.
03:02And I'm very happy to see the WNBA, that they're already putting initiatives in place to get
03:07that prize, or I don't know if they call it prize money, but salary up for those players.
03:13And tennis, like I said, we're not there yet in every tournament, but I definitely
03:17think we have the personalities, we have the talent, we have the storylines to get there.
03:22And I think it's just not only like in sports, but in every workplace in general.
03:26I mean, obviously that's not only a thing that goes on in sports, but other workplaces.
03:30And I think just as women, we just continue to support each other and starting our own
03:34businesses.
03:35That's one of the things I want to do.
03:37It's just if you can't, you know, if they won't give you a way, you make your own way.
03:41And that's something that my dad taught me.
03:42So that's a lot of things that I try to do with the brands that I work with to make sure
03:47that they have, you know, places in place for women and especially women of color.
03:52Because you know, it's one thing to be representative of that brand, but you also want to make sure
03:56that people who aren't getting the cameras and the flasher, it's showing not just on
04:00the outside, but within.
04:01So I try to try my best, I'm still young, I'm still learning.
04:04So hopefully, you know, I can inspire other brands and girls and men to do the same thing.