Tennis fans usually see the fierce, hyper-focused side of athletes at Grand Slams, but the locker room has its own share of behind-the-scenes comedy. Jessica Pegula and Madison Keys recently shared a funny story about Coco Gauff that showed the lighter side of tour life.
Coco Gauff’s ‘She-Hulk’ Locker Room Incident
On this week’s episode of “The Player’s Box” podcast, alongside Pegula, Jennifer Brady, Alexandra Eala, and Desirae Krawczyk, the world No. 18 explained the She-Hulk story of Gauff.
“This year, we were in Australia. We were in, like, a back corner,” Keys said. “And poor Coco, her locker door kept breaking. One day, she went to open it… and as soon as she opened it, she was literally like She-Hulk or something. The whole thing came off the hinges!” Keys recalled with a laugh.
Pegula, who was sitting directly across from Keys, also chimed in about the faulty design. “It was those ones that… you pull it up and you slide it in,” she noted.
Pegula described walking in to find the door completely sideways, putting all of Gauff’s gear on full display. “She would just come in, and she’d be like, ‘I don’t know what’s going on. I’ve asked them to fix it, and they keep saying they’re going to fix it,'” Pegula shared. The sight was so funny, she actually took a picture of it.
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It was just before a match, so Gauff had to do a chaotic quick fix. “She’d just like open it, and the door would be hanging, and she’d just shove it in the thing,” Pegula added. “She was like, ‘I don’t know what’s going on with this thing. I’ll deal with it later.’ She would go out and play her match. It was cute.”
The Australian swing, however, did not go as planned for Gauff, as she was knocked out in the quarterfinals by Elina Svitolina. The Middle East tour and Indian Wells proved similarly disappointing. But most recently, she made a spectacular run at her home-state tournament, the Miami Open, pushing all the way to the final, although world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka got the better of her, 6-2, 4-6, 6-3.
Meanwhile, Pegula and Keys are headlining the Charleston Open, the WTA 500 event in South Carolina that traditionally kicks off the clay-court season.
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The world No. 5 entered the tournament looking to build momentum with her balanced playing style, while Keys, a former champion at the event, will be aiming to translate her early-season consistency into a deep run on the unique green Har-Tru clay. Both are playing today in the Round of 32 against Yulia Putintseva and Donna Vekić, respectively.
For Gauff, Pegula, and Keys, the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart, the Madrid Open, and the Internazionali BNL d’Italia in Rome are what come next.
