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Coco Gauff Becomes First U.S. Tennis Player to Qualify for 2024 Olympics
first U.S. tennis player to qualify for the 2024 Olympics, mathematically clinching her spot.
Essentially, in tennis, the rankings on the men’s and women’s tours determine who will qualify. The rankings are taken from June 10, 2024, right after the French Open, and tennis rankings are from the past year—so for the Olympics, the rankings would be for points earned from June 11, 2023 through June 10, 2024. At the Olympics, the singles draw will have 64 players for both men’s and women’s tournament. Of those 64 players, 56 will qualify based on ranking—up to four per nation.
Basically, even if Gauff loses every single match between now and June 10, she will still have enough points to qualify. She qualified for the 2020 Olympics, which were held in 2021 in Tokyo, but had to withdraw after testing positive for COVID-19 before the tournament.
Earlier this year, Gauff said one of her goals is to win an Olympic medal. “One of the goals I wrote down on my vision thing, vision note, in my phone, was to win a medal in the Olympics,” she said in January. “I’ll be completely honest, I don’t really care what event it is in. I feel like a gold, silver or bronze, whatever medal it is, is one of those
whatever medal it is, is one of those things it doesn’t matter. Well, it does matter. Obviously I want to win in singles. I feel like I would appreciate it just as much whether it was in singles or doubles. It’s not the same to me as a Slam, I guess, in a way. I just put ‘I want a medal at any of the events.'”