US Open 2024 tennis live updates: Day 1 latest as Novak Djokovic and Coco Gauff launch their campaigns today

Coco Gauff has a story. It started when Chris Eubanks, her close friend, called her a few days before the start of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. Eubanks nominated Gauff to be the female flag bearer for the United States at the opening ceremony. “The athletes voted,” he tells her. “She won.” The tears start to flow.

Gauff, 20, defending US Open champion and one of the biggest stars in American sport, is proud, amazed and touched that a young black woman from what she describes as a “predominantly white sport” will end up holding the American flag for the most important moment of the world’s biggest sporting event.

She knows this isn’t just about her. During her lifetime, black Americans have become some of the biggest stars in tennis and, in some cases, have transcended the sport, especially in the United States.

“Any of them would tell you that Serena and Venus played a part in their story,” she says, paying tribute to the trailblazing Williams sisters, who changed tennis like no one before or since. She says there are so many others who should also be mentioned, including Arthur Ashe and Althea Gibson.

“They all played a role in our history.” Read more below.