Coco Gauff opened her French Open title defense with a straight-sets win on Tuesday. NBA icon Charles Barkley lauded the world No. 4 and her family's resilience amid the unique pressures of teenage tennis fame.

Last year, the two-time Grand Slam champion Gauff revealed the massive sacrifices her parents made for her tennis career. Barkley, who follows her career closely, deeply admires this family support.

“First of all, she is terrific, man. I love her story,” Barkley told John and Patrick McEnroe on the MacZone podcast. “I started following her, obviously, a few years ago. I love the support she gets from her mom and dad.”

Coco Gauff broke into the international stage when she was 15 years old. She became the youngest player in the Open Era since 1968 to compete at ‌Wimbledon.

Gauff shocked everyone when she defeated Venus Williams in the tournament. Gauff has since maintained a high level of play without off-court distractions.

“And tennis is probably the worst sport. What I mean by that is y'all are probably more famous as teenagers than any other sport in the world. And you guys both know fame is a lot, man. Everybody only looks at the positive. I mean, you got teenagers in these majors, man, they're under tremendous stress, especially now with social media and things like that. These kids are under so much pressure,” Barkley added.

“So I love Coco's story, but I love the way her mom and dad have always supported her. It seems like she's on the right path.”

Gauff defeated her fellow American, Taylor Townsend, 6-4, 6-0 in two straight sets on Tuesday. This was their second meeting since their first in 2019. Townsend had won their first meeting. She will face Mayar Sherif in the second round.

Coco Gauff Recalls Her Parents’ Sacrifices Growing Up

Gauff was born in Atlanta. Her father was a basketball coach, and her mother an educator, but her parents made a big sacrifice when they moved to Florida for Gauff’s tennis education and had to live in her grandparents’ house. 

"At the time, I don't think I grasped how, because you know, you don't know any concept of money or anything,” she said in an interview with Forbes last year. “And yeah, like for me, when we moved from Georgia, we lived with my grandparents, like, in their house.”

The sacrifices of her parents finally paid off, and now she is a two-time Grand Slam winner, winning her first Grand Slam at the US Open in 2023 at just 19.

Now an adult, she is beginning to grasp the full scale of her parents' sacrifices.

"Obviously, as a kid, you're not thinking, 'Oh, it's to save money or whatever. I'm just like, 'Oh, I get to go live in Florida, live with my grandparents, and that's so fun to be around my cousins and everything. But now I'm looking back like, yeah, that's crazy. Like we went from a two-income household to a no-income household."

Gauff’s current net worth is $35 million, and she is among the highest-earning female athletes in the world. 

Do you think Gauff can defend her title at the French Open? Let us know in the comments.

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Written by

Nandjee Ranjan

Edited by

Koushik Biswas