How Coco Gauff Wins Big On — And Off — The Court

The 21-year-old superstar faced sky-high expectations almost from the moment she picked up a racket, but the world’s highest-paid female athlete has aced every test—and now she’s thinking even bigger.The first time Coco Gauff met Serena Williams, she had to step into the tennis legend’s shoes—literally. About a decade ago, Delta Air Lines needed a body double to portray a younger version of the 23-time Grand Slam singles champion in a commercial and found the preteen Gauff at the last minute, putting her face-to-face with her idol. “I just remember her walking by, and it just felt not real,” Gauff, now 21, recalls. “You could have told me that was Jesus.”Her reaction was understandable. After all, Williams’ dominance at the Australian Open in the late 2000s inspired Corey Gauff to buy his daughter her very first racket—it was pink—and a young Coco had a photo of Williams hanging on her bedroom wall.But Gauff has come a long way from being that starstruck kid. These days, she’s the one leaving those around her in awe.Recently honored on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Sports list, Gauff ends 2025 third in the WTA Tour’s rankings, one spot behind the career-high No. 2 she reached last year, and has collected 11 career singles titles. That total includes two Grand Slams: this year’s French Open and the 2023 U.S. Open, which she won, like Williams 24 years prior, as a teenager. Since turning professional in 2018, Gauff, who has also had success in doubles as the champion at Roland-Garros in 2024 and nine other events, has accumulated nearly $30 million in prize money, the 11th-best mark in WTA history.She is similarly a force off the court, where Gauff has a robust portfolio of sponsors including New Balance, Baker Tilly and recent addition Mercedes-Benz and hauls in an estimated $25 million annually. That figure, along with her roughly $8 million in 2025 prize money, lands her at the top of Forbes’ list of the world’s highest-paid female athletes for the second straight year with total income of $33 million before taxes and agent fees—one of the best marks in the 18 years that Forbes has published a women’s earnings ranking. Only Williams and a fellow tennis ace, Naomi Osaka, have ever done better, peaking at $45.9 million and $57.3 million, respectively, in 2021.Yet Gauff has even greater ambitions. On the court, she says she feels “so far away from my potential”—and in her business life, she has another ace or two up her sleeve.This year, Gauff split with her agents at Team8, the boutique firm cofounded by tennis icon Roger Federer, to launch her own management company, Coco Gauff Enterprises, in partnership with powerhouse agency WME, giving her “more control in what I want to do.” Then, in September, she unveiled a deal with Religion of Sports, the Los Angeles-based studio founded by Tom Brady, Michael Strahan and Gotham Chopra, to develop TV shows, movies and digital content.“As I’ve gotten older, I don’t want to just be a face of brands, but also be the brand,” Gauff says. “My dad has always said that this was his plan for me when I was younger, and it was up to me if I wanted to hop on board or not. And when I became 18, I knew that this is something that I wanted to work for.”Executing that vision didn’t come without sacrifice, however. Gauff’s parents, Candi and Corey, wanted to raise athletes, having competed in college sports themselves, and as their daughter began to show promise on the court, they quit their jobs and relocated the family from Georgia to South Florida, a tennis hotbed, where they moved in with Gauff’s grandparents. Candi began homeschooling Gauff, and Corey became her coach.Molded in Clay: Coco Gauff won her second Grand Slam singles title at this year’s French Open. Roland-Garros was also where she caught New Balance’s eye in 2018 and nearly had her major breakthrough in 2022.Clive Brunskill/Getty Images, Julian Finney/Getty ImagesGauff quickly proved it was worthwhile. At 8 years old in 2012, Gauff won a juniors tournament in New York City on the prestigious Little Mo circuit and decided she wanted to spend her life pursuing professional tennis. Two years later, the rising star was invited to train at the renowned Mouratoglou Tennis Academy on the French Riviera, where Williams had also honed her skills. Three months after her 10th birthday, Gauff became the youngest player ever to win the USTA Clay Court National 12-and-under title.By that point, sponsors had started eagerly chasing the child prodigy. Gauff’s parents were reluctant to sign any deals too early, but their attitude changed in 2018, when she caught New Balance’s eye after winning the French Open’s junior tournament. Although she had harbored a desire to become a Nike athlete, the Boston-based footwear and apparel brand won over Gauff and her family with its big-picture approach to her future.“Since Day 1, when we started working with her, we told her that it was going to be bigger than tennis,” says Chris Davis, New Balance’s chief marketing officer and the son of the company’s billionaire owner, Jim Davis. “This was a brand partnership and a face-of-brand opportunity.”It quickly looked like New Balance had hit the lottery. In 2019, the year after turning pro, a 15-year-old Gauff emerged from Wimbledon’s qualifying tournament and shocked the tennis world by upsetting Venus Williams in the first round of the main draw, and then winning two more matches against seasoned veterans. From there, the expectations to win a Grand Slam intensified.Gauff had a series of terribly close calls, losing in the doubles final at the 2021 U.S. Open and, the following year, finishing as the runner-up in both singles and doubles at the French Open. “It took me a long time to get over that,” Gauff recalls. “I didn't know if I’d ever see myself in that position again.”She didn’t have to wait long for a breakthrough, though. Gauff clawed her way to the U.S. Open singles final in 2023 and, in front of a raucous crowd at Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York, pulled off a miraculous comeback against Aryna Sabalenka to win her first major.Gauff has ridden the momentum off the court, releasing her second signature shoe with New Balance last year and inking lucrative deals with partners including Fanatics, hair care brand Carol’s Daughter and, in an agreement that includes an equity stake, Naked Juice. She also invested in the upstart women’s basketball league Unrivaled in January.But the next phase of her master plan goes beyond ramping up her brand obligations, with Gauff crediting her father for envisioning a point where she would take a more active role with her business endeavors. Serena Williams, one of America’s richest self-made women with an estimated net worth of $350 million, blazed one possible trail as a venture capital investor. And watching Osaka, who left IMG to found Evolve, and Federer, whom Forbes identified as a billionaire in August, start their own agencies had a profound impact on Gauff. “I think there’s a certain level of freedom when you are rocking with yourself,” she says.Gauff is already testing that theory. Her passion for storytelling led to the partnership with Religion of Sport, which took shape after her father linked up with Chopra at the Super Bowl in February. While the tie-up hasn’t yielded any projects thus far—and any major documentary about Gauff’s young life is likely years away—they did test the waters a few months before the official announcement by working together on a campaign for Naked Juice. Gauff isn’t shy about her aspirations to one day produce a feature film, either.Chopra, who has worked with star athletes including Brady, LeBron James and—of course—Williams, hasn’t yet spent too much time observing Gauff, but he has already found himself impressed by her artistic intuition. “She kind of has that old soul vibe,” he says. “Honestly, with younger athletes, it’s harder to do the storytelling because they just have less perspective on things. In that respect, she was just different.”Chopra is just the latest in a long line of folks to see Gauff’s potential. Seven years ago, for instance, after she first visited New Balance’s offices, she sent a thank-you card to Chris Davis, the CMO, who held on to it because he believed so strongly that the then-14-year-old would one day be famous. When Gauff won the U.S. Open in 2023, Davis texted her a photo of the card, which she appreciated.“It started from Day 1 with her,” he says.30 UNDER 30 RELATED ARTICLESForbes30 Under 30 Sports 2026: Meet The Athletes And Executives Changing The GameBy Brett KnightForbes30 Under 30 Hollywood & Entertainment 2026: The Actors, Producers And Financiers Ushering In A New Wave Of EntertainmentBy Alexandra YorkForbes30 Under 30 Music 2026: Meet The Viral Stars Turning Followers Into Fortune—Alex Warren, Doechii, Benson Boone Lead The PackBy Zoya HasanForbes30 Under 30 Social Media 2026: Beyond The Algorithm, These Creators Are Making Millions—And Real World ImpactBy Angelica DeLeon