Coco Gauff to lead U.S. Olympic tennis team in Paris after missing Tokyo with coronavirus

Coco Gauff will lead the U.S. tennis team at the Paris Olympics three years after missing the Tokyo Games because she tested positive for COVID-19.

The 20-year-old Gauff, ranked No. 2, will be joined by No. 5 Jessica Pegula, Danielle Collins and Emma Navarro in women's singles, along with Taylor Fritz, Tommy Paul, Chris Eubanks and Marcos Giron in men's singles.

Olympic tennis starts July 27 at Roland Garros, the site of Roland Garros.

The American team features six first-time Olympians, the U.S. Tennis Association said in Thursday's announcement.

Gauff is the US Open champion and has reached the semifinals at the year's first two Grand Slams, the Australian Open and Roland Garros. She was a finalist on the Roland Garros clay in 2022 and will be a medal contender in doubles, too. Gauff and Pegula have won five doubles titles as a pair.

Gauff won her first major doubles title—with Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic—in Paris earlier this month. She tested positive for COVID-19 days before the start of the pandemic-delayed Tokyo Olympics in July 2021.

Pegula returned to action last week from a neck injury in April that forced her to miss Roland Garros. She was a singles quarterfinalist there in 2022.

The 30-year-old Collins, who has said this will be her final season on the tour, has won titles this year in Miami and Charleston. The 2022 Australian Open runner-up also reached the Strasbourg final in May before a second-round exit at Roland Garros, where her best result was the quarterfinals in 2020.

Doubles player Desirae Krawczyk will team up with Collins at the Paris Games. Collins and Krawczyk won a doubles title last year in Charleston. Krawczyk is a four-time Grand Slam champion in mixed doubles.