Gauff, Fritz lead six first-time Olympians among 11 U.S. selections to Paris
Top-ranked Americans Coco Gauff and Taylor Fritz will lead six first-time Olympians among the 11 total U.S. selections to the Olympic Games Paris 2024.
The U.S. Olympic tennis team was announced in full on Thursday, and it will consist of four singles players each in the men's and women's draws, two men's doubles teams, two women's doubles teams, and one mixed doubles team.
The 2024 Olympic Games will be held from July 26 to Aug. 11 in Paris, with the tennis competition taking place from July 27 to Aug. 4 on the clay courts of Roland Garros.
The women’s team is made up of singles world No. 2 Gauff, No. 5 Jessica Pegula, No. 11 Danielle Collins, No. 17 Emma Navarro, and doubles No. 11 Desirae Krawczyk, and will be coached by Kathy Rinaldi, the USTA's head of women's tennis. Gauff, Pegula, Collins and Navarro will play singles, while Gauff and Pegula, and Collins and Krawczyk, will play doubles. The men’s team consists of singles world No. 12 Fritz, No. 13 Tommy Paul, No. 44 Chris Eubanks, No. 53 Marcos Giron, and doubles No. 6 Rajeev Ram and No. 15 Austin Krajicek. Fritz, Paul, Eubanks and Giron play singles, while Ram and Krajicek, and Fritz and Paul, will play doubles. The men will be coached by 2012 Olympic doubles gold medalist Bob Bryan.
The mixed doubles team will be taken from the qualified players and named at a later date.
Ram, a mixed doubles silver medalist in 2016 in Rio, will compete in his third consecutive Olympics. Competing in their second are 2021 Tokyo Olympians Pegula, Paul, Giron and Krajicek, while Gauff–who was named to compete in 2021 in Tokyo but did not compete after testing positive for COVID-19–Collins, Navarro, Krawczyk, Fritz and Eubanks will make their Olympic debuts.
The U.S. has won a world-leading 24 Olympic medals, 14 of them gold, in tennis since it returned as a full medal sport in 1988. And it will be favorites to reach the podium again on the strength of players who've excelled on the clay courts of Roland Garros before. Gauff was the 2022 singles finalist, and also reached the semifinals this year, while Collins and Pegula have previously reached the quarterfinals at the tournament. Navarro had a career-best French Open run in 2024, where she reached the fourth round, and Krawczyk won the first of her four Grand Slam mixed doubles titles in Paris three years ago.
On the men's side, Fritz and Paul both recorded their best Roland Garros results in 2024, with the latter beating the former in the 2015 French Open junior boys' final to become just the third American to win that title in the Open Era.
Eligible singles players had the opportunity to accept or decline a nomination to the 2024 Olympic tennis team. If a player declined, the next highest-ranked American singles player had the nomination extended to them.
Related Articles
-
Gauff d. Swiatek, into SFsNovember 05, 2024Coco Gauff earned her second career win against world No. 2 Iga Swiatek to book her place in the semifinals at the 2024 WTA Finals in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Read More
-
Gauff d. Pegula at FinalsNovember 03, 2024Coco Gauff beat fellow American Jessica Pegula in the opening group-stage match for both women at the 2024 WTA Finals in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Read More
-
Krueger in, Pegula outOctober 30, 2024Twenty-year-old Ashlyn Krueger will replace Jessica Pegula on captain Lindsay Davenport's team at next month's Billie Jean King Cup Finals in Malaga, Spain. Read More