Gauff defends mom's blunt message to army of ticket requesters
NEW YORK -- Candi Gauff has a message for everyone in her orbit: Enough with the ticket requests!
Coco Gauff's mom took to Instagram on Thursday and made it clear that her daughter doesn't have any more tickets to give at the US Open, and added that proper etiquette is not to ask for more than two.
The younger Gauff didn't know that her mom was going to post that message, she told reporters on media day on Friday. Scrolling on Instagram before practice, she quickly saw the photo of her holding the Cincinnati trophy and the lengthy caption, and assumed it was a heartfelt message about her first WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz title of the year. She planned to go back and read it later.
"Then I saw somebody on Threads say, 'Oh, Mama Gauff is strict,'" Gauff said. "I was like, 'What's going on?' I looked, and then I see this post, and I'm like, 'Oh my goodness.' But honestly it was needed, and it was directed towards a few family and friends."
The 2023 US Open champion said that the overload of requests has caused stress for her mom and dad in the past, especially since the US Open is more geographically accessible than the other majors, and there's outsized demand. The Gauffs gladly accommodate as many tickets as they can, but Coco doesn't appreciate the asks from those who barely reach out the rest of the year.
"People come out of the woodwork," the World No. 4 said. "You haven't spoken to someone for years. They don't say congrats or happy birthday or nothing. Then they're like, 'Oh, I'm in New York, can I have eight tickets to your match in your box, please?'
"Specifically in New York, it's just crazy. But New York and Wimbledon are the ones that I think people want to come to, and we try our best to accommodate everyone. But some of the requests, you would be surprised at how absurd they are."
Having an extremely large family, while wonderful, doesn't help matters.
"Like any family, there are just some people you don't really talk to," she said, "so those are the ones that seem to ask the most. I feel like the people around me, the close ones, they know when to come in and support and when to take a step back.
"I think over the course of the seven years [since first debuting at the US Open], I feel like my mom hit a tipping point, because it's been going on
since [I was] 15. They really are my safeguards, and I am lucky they try to make sure no one is hitting up my phone, so I don't really get many requests."
Gauff enters the US Open on a six-match winning streak after winning Cincinnati, and an opportunity to take the World No. 1 ranking for the first time if she can win her second title in Queens.
She'll play World No. 52 Zeynep Sonmez in the first round on Sunday.
