WNBA star Sabrina Ionescu has a fan in US Open champion Coco Gauff.

In the aftermath of this weekend's NBA All-Star Skills Challenge, where New York Liberty point guard Ionescu went head-to-head with Golden State Warriors' sharpshooter Stephen Curry in the first-ever mixed-gender, 3-point shooting contest, basketball enthusiast Gauff hailed Ionescu's effort as "incredible" while saying the exhibition could serve as a model for other sports to follow. 

Ionescu, 26, sunk 26 3-point shots from NBA distance -- which is further from the basket than the WNBA's regulation 3-point shooting line. Though Curry bested her with 29 made shots, Ionescu made the same number of shots as Damian Lillard of the Milwaukee Bucks -- the winner of the scheduled shooting contest amongst eight NBA players.

"I think what she did was incredible, especially also shooting from the NBA line," Gauff said ahead of her second-round match at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships. "There's a lot of people saying that she should have shot from the WNBA line, that that would have mattered.

"At the end of the day if you watch her play, watch her or Caitlin Clark play, they shoot from way past the NBA range quite often, so I think that debate was silly. She lost. Steph is definitely the greatest three-point shooter ever.

"The fact is that Damian Lillard, I am pretty sure he scored 26 in his three-point contest, and she had 26, so she would have tied him. So I think that argument is silly. It's just a competition. She just happened to lose."

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Speaking more broadly about what the competition meant for gender equity in sports, Gauff also said that a similar skills-based competition could translate in tennis, in the areas of serving or shot-making abilities. The US Open champion said she'd love to see Serena Williams and Nick Kyrgios go head-to-head in serving precision, or watch Ons Jabeur and Carlos Alcaraz duel for the claim of most deft drop shot. 

"I just hope they [the NBA] continue to do this," the American continued. "It just humbles a lot of men in the world. I really like that. Especially basketball, that type of competition, it's something where physicality doesn't always matter. I think that's what makes it cool."