Cori Gauff is the Wild Card to Play in US Open

On Tuesday, the United States Open announced its wild-card decisions, confirming Wimbledon breakout star Cori Gauff to play for the tournament. The competition in Queens later this month will be the young tennis star’s second appearance in a Grand Slam main draw.

Cori “Coco” Gauff, currently 140th in world rankings, is the youngest to qualify in the history of Wimbledon at the age of 15. Last month, she had a proper arrival on the tennis scene as she claimed victory over five-time Wimbledon singles champion Venus Williams. After that, she was on a streak, beating veterans Magdalena Rybarikova and Polona Hercog. She eventually lost in the fourth round to Simona Halep, who won over Serena Williams. Next week, she will be in an exhibition match with Ashleigh Barty in Winston-Salem, N.C. A writer on the WTA Tennis site commented that Gauff “controls the controllables.“

Another wild card in this year’s U.S Open is the 17-year-old Caty McNally who recently won the doubles title alongside Gauff at the Citi Open in Washington. New York Times reported that reciprocal wild cards are essentially agreements between the U.S Tennis Association and the Australian and French tennis federations to allow players who don’t have enough ranking points to enter the main draw of an event by skipping the qualifying tournament. The Grand Slam tournaments give out wild cards to specifically promote players from the host country.

On the men’s side, American wild cards went to Ernesto Escobedo, Bjorn Fratangelo, Marcos Giron, Christopher Eubanks, Jack Sock, and Zachary Svajda.