Coco Gauff responds to rumours she is dating a rising tennis star

Coco Gauff set tongues wagging when she spoke about her new boyfriend in a recent interview, with some speculation suggesting she may have been referring to a fellow tennis player.

Gauff will celebrate her 20th birthday next week and has rarely spoken about her romantic life since she became a global sporting icon.

Then she made these comments in an interview with Vogue, as she spoke about her new boyfriend.

There were rumours that Gauff may be dating her fellow American tennis protege Ben Shelton, but she banished that story with her comments in an interview with Vogue.

“He’s a very nice guy. He’s in school now. He’s about to apply for music school. He wants to be an actor and he plays the guitar,” Gauff told Vogue,

“He’s actually from Atlanta. And actually, um, I will say this: People on Twitter found him two or three days ago. I won’t respond and confirm if it’s him or not, but they caught me in the comments, so they know. Some people thought it was someone in tennis and that couldn’t be further from the truth.

“I think I felt like I just, some parts of myself I love to share and then some parts I think I just keep to myself.

“And I think that’s just the beauty of it all, that people still know me and know parts of me, but not everything. So I do feel like my life is a little bit in my hands too.”

She also opened up on her tennis ambitions in the interview as she added: “I would say the biggest things on there are to win another Slam and a medal at the Olympics.

“I really want to do well or win Roland Garros because I just felt like I was so close last time (in 2022 when she lost to Iga Swiatek in the final).

“Paris is my favourite city, so I do want to try to win there. That would be special. But obviously, if it’s not Roland Garros, I’d be very happy to win Wimbledon or the US Open.

READ MORE: Indian Wells draw: Iga Swiatek faces bruising path, Coco Gauff and Naomi Osaka in same section

“That was a feeling (winning the US Open) I’ll never be able to replicate no matter how many more matches I win,” she said. “I want to win more so I can get as close to the feeling. I told my mom. I literally said, ‘It was an addictive feeling.’

“As soon as I felt that, I wanted to re-feel it again. … For the rest of my life, the rest of my career, I’m going to be chasing that high.

“I just feel like everything that you go through builds to something. I don’t know. Maybe my something wasn’t even that. Maybe God has bigger plans in store for me.”

US Open champion Gauff has emerged as a fine role model for girls around the world and has attracted a huge army of fans after making a breakthrough at Wimbledon when she was just 15.

An eloquent speaker when he needs to speak to the media, she admits her priorities are not only on the tennis court.

“I think for me it’s always important to speak up if there are issues that I care about,” Gauff said last month.

“For me, being a tennis player, it’s second, third, fourth, fifth to who I am as a person.

“I definitely feel when I play in places where there are more minorities, it does feel truthfully like a connection, and we all have different struggles in the world, depending on our race or background,” Coco Gauff said.

“Hopefully it is something we can connect on, being different or being perceived differently than how we actually are. So I do, you know, feel a connection a little bit here or just anyplace where I play where, you know, it’s more minorities.

“I feel like I feel that in the crowd here and I feel like when I’m walking around the site here, I feel like people connect with me on that.”

Gauff will play her first tournament on home soil since her US Open in last September when she plays at the WTA 1000 event at Indian Wells this week.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbHNp6Csa2Zqe6S7zGiurZldqby2vo6cppynXZyutrLFZqmeq6Cku6W%2FjKuspqelp8Burs6ynauhlaOxbq7Ep2SsoJWhwbC6