Coco Gauff, who shot to fame by reaching the Wimbledon last 16 as a 15-year-old in 2019, is the latest leading WTA Tour player to write a BBC Sport column.
In her latest piece before the Australian Open fourth round, the American seventh seed talks about her other role as a TikTok trendsetter and how her dad became a viral sensation.
Professional tennis can be a tough business so it is important to find a way to unwind – I love to do that by creating videos on TikTok.
I find it the best way to escape from tennis. Maybe some people think there are better ways to escape from things but that is the Gen Z way!
It’s the only app where I’m not necessarily seen as a tennis player. Some people who follow me don’t even know I play tennis.
Obviously people follow me on Instagram and Twitter, which is mainly all tennis content, whereas I rarely post tennis content on TikTok. I only put stuff there if I can make it funny.
I had a viral dance which had millions of views. Nobody knew it was my dance – that’s my fun fact.
I made it as a joke and influencers with millions of followers were doing the dance and some of them were crediting me. So maybe I’m a trendsetter on TikTok!
It’s not the only dance I’ve had go viral, in fact I had one this week which had two million views.
The reason that went viral was because of my dad! Everyone is loving the video of him doing a dance – mainly because he wasn’t that good at it.
My dad claims he doesn’t like the attention but I think he secretly loves it. He’s the type of guy who likes to make people laugh.
He’s definitely playing into it! He did a remake after the first video and if I asked him to do another video, I’m sure he would.
The video was a trend to ‘party next door’ and everyone is doing it with their parents, but I think I was the first person to not teach them the dance, I told them just to copy me.
I think that is the reason why it blew up because I created my own trend – and maybe because people thought my dad was trash.
When I told my dad it had gone viral and how many views it had, he said: “What does viral mean? And do I get a cheque?” He needs to get paid!
How listening to Jaden, The Weeknd & J Cole puts me in the zone
People will have seen that when I walk out onto court I usually have my headphones on.
Doing this really…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at BBC Sport – Tennis…