How tall is Coco Gauff?

Coco Gauff's official height: 5′9″ on the WTA profile

The WTA lists Coco Gauff at 175 cm (5′9″), and that is the value this site uses. The WTA's player profile, which also records that she plays right-handed and was born on March 13, 2004, is the most authoritative public source for her height, since the tour publishes it alongside her official rankings and titles. Wikidata cites the same WTA page for its 175 cm entry, and we have not found a reputable source that contradicts it.

What makes Gauff's height interesting is when it was measured. She burst onto the tour at 15, an age at which many girls are still growing, so early profiles and broadcasts described a teenager who was visibly shorter and slighter than she is now. By the time she won the 2023 US Open at 19, she had reached her adult height. Unlike many athletes, then, Gauff's height has an obvious "before and after," and the 5′9″ listing describes the adult player who has since won two Grand Slam singles titles.

Growing up on tour: from 15-year-old qualifier to champion

Gauff's height timeline runs in public. At Wimbledon 2019, ranked No. 313, she came through qualifying at 15 years and three months to become the youngest player in the Open Era to reach the main draw by qualifying, and in her first Grand Slam main-draw match she beat five-time champion Venus Williams. Venus is listed on this site at 185 cm (6′1″), and in photographs from that match the teenage Gauff is clearly much shorter. A few months later, at 15 years and seven months, she won her first WTA title in Linz, the youngest tour-level champion in years.

Because no official height was published for her during those early seasons, any specific figure you see for her at 15 is an estimate. What is certain is that she grew noticeably between 2019 and 2022. By the 2022 French Open, where she reached her first major final at 18, she was much closer to her current height, and by the 2023 US Open she was at her full 5′9″.

That growth mattered for her tennis. Coaches and commentators noted her serve getting bigger and her reach extending across the baseline during those years. A taller frame raises the contact point on the serve, which changes the angle at which the ball crosses the net and makes it easier to hit deep, fast first serves. It also adds reach on defense, letting a player get a racket on balls that would have been winners a year or two earlier.

Junior years

Gauff's results as a junior hint at how much her game relied on athleticism rather than size. She won the USTA Clay Court National 12-and-under title at 10, the youngest champion in that event's history, and became the world's No. 1 junior. She won the 2018 French Open girls' title at 14. Many of those wins came against older, taller opponents, which encouraged the speed and defensive skills that remain the core of her game.

Height in the context of the WTA's top players

At 175 cm, Gauff sits in the middle of the range among today's leading players. The table uses this site's figures.

Two patterns stand out. First, Gauff's main rivals for major titles are split between taller power players, such as Sabalenka and Rybakina, and players of almost exactly her height, such as Świątek. Second, her two Grand Slam singles titles both came by beating a taller opponent in the final.

The Sabalenka rivalry

Gauff and Sabalenka have met in multiple major finals, and the 7 cm height gap is part of what makes the matchup distinctive. Sabalenka's game is built on first-strike power, a big serve and flat, heavy groundstrokes that are easier to generate from a taller frame. Gauff's is built on speed, defense, a heavy-topspin forehand and the ability to extend points until her opponent misses.

In the 2023 US Open final, Gauff came back from a set down to beat Sabalenka for her first major title. In the 2025 French Open final on June 7, 2025, she again lost the opening set, in a tiebreak, then won 6–7(5), 6–2, 6–4 against the top-ranked Sabalenka, according to the AP's report. Both finals followed a similar script: the taller player dictated early, and Gauff's movement gradually turned the match.

The Świątek matchup

Against Iga Świątek, height is not a factor at all; on this site they are listed only 1 cm apart. That matchup comes down to Świątek's heavy topspin and Gauff's ability to absorb it. Świątek has led their head-to-head, including the 2022 French Open final, but Gauff beat her on the way to the 2024 WTA Finals title in Riyadh, where she became the youngest year-end champion since Maria Sharapova in 2004.

How her height shapes her game

Gauff's mix of size and speed has made her one of the best movers on tour. At 5′9″ she is tall enough to serve with real power and to cover a wide court, but not so tall that she sacrifices quickness changing direction. Coaches have shaped her game around that balance:

• Brad Gilbert, who coached her from July 2023 to September 2024, encouraged high, heavy topspin and an attitude of chasing every ball, which plays to a fast, agile athlete.
• Matt Daly, hired in September 2024, focused on her serve and forehand, including work on her grip, according to Wikipedia's account of her coaching history.

Her serve is a good example of how height interacts with technique. A taller player has a natural advantage in serve geometry, but at 175 cm that advantage is modest, so consistency of toss and grip matter a great deal. Her serve has at times been her biggest weapon and at others the shot that cost her matches through double faults, and much of the public discussion of her technique has centered on it.

What 5′9″ means on a tennis court

Tennis has fixed dimensions, so height translates directly into geometry. The net is 3 feet (91.4 cm) high at the center strap and 3 feet 6 inches (106.7 cm) at the posts. On the serve, a player makes contact well above her head, with the racket fully extended, so the contact point is typically around one and a half times the player's height. For Gauff that means striking the ball somewhere around 2.6 meters off the ground; for a 6-foot player like Sabalenka it is several centimeters higher. Each extra centimeter of contact height slightly widens the window through which a hard, flat serve can clear the net and still land in the service box.

The other side of the ledger is movement. A shorter, lighter player can usually change direction faster and stay lower to the ground on defense, and Gauff's footwork and court coverage are among the most praised parts of her game, particularly her ability to turn defense into offense with a single stride. Her height lets her serve with power while staying fast enough to defend like a smaller player, which is unusual.

Why clay has suited her

Although Gauff has said hard courts are her favorite surface, her best results have often come on clay: her first major final at the 2022 French Open, the 2024 French Open doubles title with Kateřina Siniaková, and the 2025 French Open singles title. Clay slows the ball and produces a higher bounce, which blunts some of the advantage of a big, flat serve and rewards players who can slide, defend and hit heavy topspin. That combination neutralizes part of what a taller power hitter gains from height, and amplifies the strengths of a quick athlete. It is no coincidence that her French Open title came against the taller Sabalenka, after the first set slipped away and the rallies grew longer.

Family background and athletic genes

Gauff comes from an athletic family. According to her Wikipedia biography, her father, Corey Gauff, played college basketball at Georgia State University, and her mother, Candi, was a track-and-field athlete at Florida State University. Her parents gave up their careers to support her training: Corey became her primary coach, and Candi oversaw her homeschooling. She has two younger brothers.

Their exact heights are not documented by any reliable source we could find, so we do not state them. A basketball and track background points to an athletic family, but sport history alone does not tell you a person's height, and we avoid guessing.

The flag-bearer photo: Gauff and LeBron James

One of the most widely shared height comparisons involving Gauff comes from the Paris 2024 Olympics. Her fellow American Olympians voted her and LeBron James as the US flag bearers for the opening ceremony, held on boats along the Seine. At 20, she became the youngest flag bearer in US Olympic history and the first American tennis player chosen, as CBS Sports reported.

Using this site's figures, LeBron James stands about 206 cm, roughly 31 cm, or just over a foot, taller than Gauff. In the photographs of the two holding the flag together, the top of her head reaches roughly to his shoulder. It is a good illustration of how an athlete who is tall by everyday standards can look small next to an NBA forward.

Compared with the average American woman

Gauff was born in 2004. The NCD Risk Factor Collaboration's most recent cohort estimate for American women, those born in 1996, is about 163.5 cm (5′4½″).

Gauff is roughly 11 to 12 cm (about 4½ inches) taller than the average American woman, which places her around the top few percent of the national distribution. She is also only about 2 cm shorter than the average American man of her generation. Notice, too, how flat the female averages have been: American women born in 1956 and 1996 averaged nearly the same height, which reflects the long plateau in US height since the mid-20th century. You can explore those trends on our United States average height page.

Seeing Gauff's height side by side

To compare Coco Gauff with another player or with yourself, the main height comparison tool shows figures at true scale, and the height difference calculator gives exact gaps in centimeters and inches. Good comparisons to try are Gauff next to Sabalenka, her biggest rival in major finals, and Gauff next to Serena Williams, the champion she grew up watching. For more athletes, browse the celebrity heights hub.