Coco Gauff, the track star? 'Noah Lyles said he saw me as a 400-meter hurdler'

Coco Gauff is one of the fastest women on the WTA tour, with her foot speed and defensive skills chief among the attributes she uses to win tennis matches. But had things gone differently in her childhood, Gauff might now be competing for the title of "fastest woman in the world" instead.

The US Open champion's mother, Candi, was on the track and field team at Florida State University, and Coco Gauff's talent in that sport was naturally evident in her youth. But after rubbing shoulders with some of Team USA's biggest track and field stars at the Paris Olympics, Gauff says she found herself wondering what might've been.

"I don't know if I would have been as good as I was in tennis in track, but I strongly feel like if I would have trained I could have been an Olympian," Gauff said after her opening win Thursday at the National Bank Open.

"Track is the only sport I would say that in just because I did do well in middle school like never training. I didn't go to one track practice, and I won all my races except two, and both were against the same girl and she was in 8th grade."

Candi Gauff, Coco Gauff said, thinks her daughter would've excelled in the 400-meter event. But she's not the only one.

A gold medalist Gauff met in Paris agrees.

"Noah Lyles said he saw me as a 400 hurdler, but I'm kind of scared of hurdles, so I don't think I would have been like that," Gauff said. "But definitely 400 or longer would have been my thing.

"Sometimes I'm like, 'What could have happened?' I even talked to my dad about putting me in some local track meets in the offseason, just for the fun of it, just to see where I could go."

But would'ves, could'ves and should'ves weren't all that Gauff took away from Team USA's best athletes at her first Olympics.

After failing to medal in any of the three events she entered, the 20-year-old said found inspiration and perspective from the personal journeys of Tara Davis-Woodhall, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, Sha'carri Richardson and Gabby Thomas -- each of whom, all ages 24 to 27, overcame physical and mental challenges to put themselves on the medal stand.

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"It does inspire me, and just also it puts perspective to my age," she said. "A lot of them are 24, between 24 to 27 range ... I think I just learned to just trust in my training and trust in the journey, just with talking with them and learning about their stories.

"Sometimes when you do well young you just want everything to happen now. All of them at some point did well young, just because they're so good, but I just learned to trust the journey and trust maturity and just your game is going to reach its final form in a few years."

With a laugh, she added: "I'm 20, so hopefully by, like, 24 I'm there."