DELRAY BEACH, Fla. — The father of a Delray Beach teen tennis star said his daughter is fulfilling a dream 18 months in the making by competing in the Olympics.
"So proud of my daughter," Corey Gauff wrote Thursday in a Facebook post after it was announced that 17-year-old sensation Coco Gauff is headed to Tokyo later this month.
"She is an example of setting your goals as high as possible," Corey Gauff continued, pointing out how she told him 18 months ago that she wanted to go to the Olympics.
Corey Gauff joked that he would try to get some tickets. But that's when she told him, "No, I want to play."
At the time, Corey Gauff said, his daughter had 12 girls in front of her trying to earn one of the coveted four spots. He said Sofia Kenin and Serena Williams had pretty much locked up two of those spots.
"Well, she went to work, we put together a plan and she chopped a lot of wood and now she is an Olympian," Corey Gauff added. "Dreams do come true!"
Coco Gauff has since become a household name, upsetting Venus Williams at Wimbledon in 2019, advancing to the fourth round of the 2020 Australian Open and reaching the quarterfinals of the French Open earlier this year.
She currently holds the No. 23 ranking in the world.
Kenin and Williams qualified in the spring but chose not to play.
The Tokyo Olympics begin July 23 on WPTV.