Coco Gauff joins the chorus for opportunity in women’s sports

Ahead of the start of the Mutua Madrid Open, Coco Gauff added her voice to the growing chorus that's been discussing topics including opportunity and pay equity for female athletes in recent weeks.

That chatter began to swell back home earlier this month after a record-setting women's college basketball tournament, where the University of South Carolina's victory over the Caitlin Clark-led University of Iowa Hawkeyes in the final outdrew the men's championship in total viewers, and only amped up in the aftermath of last week's WNBA Draft.

Clark was selected first overall by the Indiana Fever, and it quickly went viral for the wrong reasons: Clark, the NCAA's all-time leading scorer, signed a four-year, $338,056 deal with the team, putting her first-year base salary at just $76,535. By comparison, Victor Wembanyama, last year's No. 1 pick in the NBA draft, signed a rookie contract valued at more than $1 million annually. 

"Not that it's always about money, but obviously ... these women are very, very much severely underpaid when it comes to the amount of work, when it comes to their male counterparts," Gauff said Tuesday of athletes in other sports.

As one of the highest-paid athletes in the world last year as a result of her on-court and off-court portfolio, Gauff -- who grew up playing basketball in addition to tennis -- told reporters in Madrid that she was blessed that her parents had a secondary interest in tennis in addition to their own chosen sports. (Her father, Corey, played college-level basketball while her mother, Candi, competed in track and field.)

The reason why she's in the position she's in, she added, is because of those who came before her on the tennis court and a vision that was, for many of them, ahead of their time.

"I'm thankful for the tennis pioneers starting that kind of change early. ... Billie Jean King, the Original Nine, Venus Williams, making it vocal very early," Gauff said Tuesday. After winning the US Open last summer, for example, Gauff famously thanked Billie Jean King -- who presented her the trophy in celebration of the tournament's 50th anniversary of equal prize money -- for the record $3 million she earned.

"Tennis is unique because it's such a global sport. I feel like it put us on that stage very early on," she continued. "Even though basketball is a global sport, it's still moving [its] roots now outside of the U.S. When it comes to WNBA, you're seeing how much attention these women are bringing to the sport and bringing to other people, and how much they're getting paid, [it] is very different."

But the winds of change are blowing, Gauff added, thanks in part to the power that social media and other tools bring to the table.

Couple that with the fact that many entrepreneurs (including Serena Williams) are now investing in female athletes and teams, and it's an exciting time for the global sporting landscape on a whole, she said.

Having gone through that process herself before she was even legally an adult, Gauff also had a message for a message for these sporting stars who are now being equipped with the tools to build their own personal brands. 

"The biggest advice I would give them is that money is great, but you have to say no to some things," she said. "Michelle Obama told me this: 'The power of no is very important.' People are going to be approaching you about all these things, and every opportunity probably really looks cool.

"But at the end of the day, your craft is the thing that should be number one before all of these things outside of family, or religion, and all that. You want to continue at your craft. Tennis is my platform to get other things, and so basketball or soccer or whatever should be bigger platforms to other things.

"And just, be careful who you give your 'yesses' to, because you don't want to be mentally burnt out. Sometimes with the lights and the cameras, you just want to be in it all, but you just have to be a balance of that."