Serena Williams names Coco Gauff as target doubles partner — say yes, Coco

Days before Serena Williams confirmed her tennis comeback, Coco Gauff was asked about the possibility at Roland-Garros.

“That would be really cool,” Gauff, 22, said. “I did say one of my biggest regrets was not being able to play her. Everybody’s been hearing rumors and stuff, so if they are true, I guess we’ll find out in a couple of days based off the rumors. We’ll see. But I think it would be for the sport to have a legend back playing.”

Williams, 44, doesn’t want to play against Gauff in singles.

She wants to play doubles with Gauff, and I have never manifested anything harder.

“I would really love to play with Coco,” Williams said after she and Karolina Muchova lost at the Berlin Tennis Open on Tuesday. “To be honest, she was on my list of people that I would love to play with. I should have done better research on who was on the charts, but Karolina is such a great player. She’s such a beautiful player, and she’s someone that I love to watch.”

Williams added, “I love watching Coco as well. Now that I know that — and she’s so focused on singles nowadays. I guess I should have asked, though. I didn’t know.”

Williams played her first pro tennis match since the 2022 US Open when she and Victoria Mboko, 19, won in doubles at the Round of 16 game of HSBC Championshipsat Queen’s Club in London on June 9. Their run was cut short when Mboko was forced to withdraw due to a knee injury. Williams turned her attention toward Berlin, and it was announced this week that she and Venus Williams, her sister, will play doubles together at Wimbledon.

Williams is a 23-time Grand Slam singles champion — the most by any woman in the Open Era — and she and Venus have won 14 doubles titles together. Six came at Wimbledon.