
Coco Gauff's French Open trophy isn't what she expected
Coco Gauff's French Open trophy isn't what she expected
French Open winner Coco Gauff recently revealed some surprising information about the tournament's trophy.
Over the weekend, Gauff won her second career Grand Slam title after defeating world No. 1-ranked Aryna Sabalenka. The 21-year-old phenom battled back after dropping the first set 7-6 to the Belarusian. She went on to win the next two sets, 6-2 and 6-4, respectively, in an impressive display of mental fortitude for such a young player. A win like that deserves some serious fanfare, and that's what Gauff got as she proudly showed off her trophy to the crowd post-match.
However, the Atlanta native recently revealed that the trophy used during the celebration ceremony (and for pictures and press) isn't the one she keeps. "Actually, we don't get to take this home. This stays with the tournament," Gauff said in a new TikTok video before revealing a miniature version. "It's really small," she says, chuckling, moments before putting it next to a Perrier bottle as a size reference.
"It is very pretty and a miniature version of the real trophy. So, this is the one that I get to take home," Gauff continued as she reflected on her win while holding up her version of the trophy. Just in case anyone doubted her story, she also did a side-by-side photo comparison holding up her French Open hardware versus the one seen on the court.
It seems the trophy wasn't what she expected, but she's taking it in stride. We would argue it isn't all bad. It's travel size, and now, she can bring it out upon request or just to casually flex. That's a win-win.

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USA Today
an hour ago
- USA Today
Coco Gauff ‘surprised' by Aryna Sabalenka's comments after French Open win
Coco Gauff 'surprised' by Aryna Sabalenka's comments after French Open win Show Caption Hide Caption Jessica Pagula on accomplished Coco Gauff, Emma Navarro, Madison Keys Tennis player Jessica Pegula discusses how amazing it is to have other amazing American women in tennis dominating the sport. Sports Seriously American tennis star Coco Gauff, 21, is fresh off her first French Open win, defeating world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka in the finals on Saturday, June 7. Gauff's victory marked the first time in a decade that an American had won the French Open. However, Gauff's moment of celebration was short-lived after Sabalenka made some shocking comments to the media following her loss. "I think she won the match not because she played incredible," said Sabalenka. "Just because I made all of those mistakes, if you look from the outside, from kind of easy balls." Although Sabalenka later retracted some of her comments, praising Gauff for how she "played with poise and purpose." The original comments had already been aired out, and Gauff was certainly taken aback by her statements. Tennis News: Coco Gauff's French Open title came with a trophy she wasn't expecting Coco Gauff 'surprised' by Sabalenka comments In response to Sabalenka's comments, Gauff told "Good Morning America" on Monday, "I was a little bit surprised about the comments and everything but I'm gonna give her the benefit of the doubt. I'm sure it was an emotional day, emotional match." Gauff continued, "I know she was probably a bit emotional after that match and it was a tough loss." Gauff went on to call Sabalenka a "fighter" and "a tough opponent," noting that the windy conditions during the finals were very tough on both of them. That is something that Sabalenka noted as well, citing that Gauff "handled the conditions much better." Have Gauff and Sabalenka played before? Heading into the French Open finals, Gauff and Sabalenka had a career match record of 5-5 against one another. Gauff has now pulled ahead at 6-5. Gauff is 2-1 against Sabalenka at Grand Slam finals. French Open final highlights: Coco Gauff wins title in thrilling battle over Aryna Sabalenka


Cosmopolitan
an hour ago
- Cosmopolitan
What Is Decentering Men?
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In recent years, 'decentering men' has fully entered the zeitgeist, reaching buzzword status on TikTok and even popping up in conversations with stars like Hannah Berner and Paige Desorbo, who've discussed the concept on their Giggly Squad podcast as well as in a recent interview with CBS. 'Decentering men means when you wake up in the morning, do not base all your decisions around a man,' Berner told co-host Gayle King. But as with anything that gains traction online, the internet virality decentering men is currently enjoying leaves it vulnerable to potential misuse and misconceptions. So if you, like me, woke up one day to find this phrase had suddenly taken up residence in your brain without knowing exactly where it came from or what it means, here's an expert-backed guide to the trend that is actually not, in fact, as Taylor puts it, 'a cute trend,' but rather 'a political response, a rejection of the lie that our power comes from proximity to men.' 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'Essentially, women center men when we orient our life plans around securing a romantic relationship with a man,' Tothill explains, adding that women are also culturally pressured into maintaining these relationships even if they are not healthy, rewarding, or safe. But decentering men, and the ways in which life under patriarchy first teaches us to center them, is about more than the 'happily ever after' model of romantic relationships as the end-all, be-all that Disney movies of yore are (somewhat reductively albeit not unfairly) accused of spoon-feeding generations of young girls. The pressure women feel from a young age to get a boyfriend, a ring, a wedding, to orient our lives around the crowning achievement of locking it down with a man in the eyes of the law and all of our Instagram followers, is one of the most obvious manifestations of centering men at work. But the roots go much deeper. 'Women's entire lives are defined by patriarchal systems engineered to exploit our time and labour; it's so built into the fabric of society that we can even fail to notice it,' says Tothill. 'Decentering men is a conscious pushback against this exploitation.' Because that exploitation is so accepted as a default societal setting, its force often goes unnoticed—even and especially by the women it drains. 'I coined the term 'decentering men' when I realized I was exhausted from living with a man-shaped shadow in every decision,' says Taylor. 'It felt like I was living at 85 percent, waiting for someone to permit me to hit 100. That's what patriarchy does. It teaches women to hold back until we are chosen. Decentering men is a practice of naming that, confronting it, and choosing to live as sovereign women on our own terms.' Decentering men has quickly gained popularity since Taylor coined the term in 2019, becoming even more widespread in the last few years. Sex researcher Melissa A. Fabello, PhD, attributes this recent boom to the rise of TikTok and the breakneck speed with which trends gain traction on the platform, as well as the simultaneous increase in awareness of South Korea's 4B movement in the US, which encourages women to abstain entirely from dating, marrying, sex, and having children with men. Of course, both 4B and decentering men owe their recent rise in American consciousness to a current political climate that has reinforced and reinvigorated a regressive culture of misogyny. 'It's cruelly obvious in recent years that the patriarchal structures that define our society, as well as individual men, have little interest in actively advancing women's liberation,' says Tothill. 'After a string of high-profile political disappointments for women—the repeal of reproductive rights in the US, for example—women are realizing they will not be protected by men or male systems of power. So we are asking ourselves: do men even deserve our attention?' Meanwhile, for all the political regression in the air at the moment, our current era remains the first time in modern history that women have had the social and economic opportunity to choose singlehood, notes feminist dating coach Lily Womble, founder of Date Brazen and author of Thank You, More Please. Although, of course, it's worth noting that for many women, staying single remains financially risky if not impossible. Still, as women increasingly gain access to modern freedoms like financial independence and the ability to shape our lives on our terms, 'it's critical that we weigh those freedoms against the risks our relationships with men can pose to them,' says Tothill. The more freedom we get from men, the more we realize how much we have to lose to them. If decentering men is having a moment, it's because 'women are paying attention,' says Taylor. 'We are watching Roe v. Wade be reversed. We are watching incel culture go mainstream. We are watching our rights be stripped away, our safety threatened, our labor exploited, and our autonomy questioned. We are watching the rise of fascism cloaked in tradwife aesthetics, where women's value is reduced to submission and domesticity. And we are done pretending that this is normal. That is why it's resonating. Because women are waking up, and we are tired.' So if centering men begins with the societal pressure women face to build their lives around securing a romantic relationship with one, does decentering them have to mean going boy sober? Short answer, no, not necessarily. While, as Febos noted, decentering men is related to the 4B movement, it does not demand the same commitment to swearing off men entirely. In fact, Womble says the idea that decentering men means you can't or shouldn't date them is one of the biggest misconceptions surrounding it. 'The problem that the decentering men movement is aptly responding to is the patriarchal culture that tells women to shrink what they want and settle for emotionally lackluster relationships,' says Womble. 'Considering this patriarchal conditioning, of course women are taught that to date men is to inherently settle for and center them.' According to Womble, decentering men in your dating life is not about removing them from it entirely, but rather recentering yourself and your desires. And if those desires happen to include a relationship with a man, women are well within their rights to pursue that without compromising their values. 'The problem is when you make men (specifically those who were wrong for you) the focus—whether that's going on mediocre dates, staying in 'just okay' or even toxic relationships, or stopping your dating life altogether, even when you want partnership,' says Womble. 'I see women often turn their exes into 'evidence' that the relationship they want doesn't exist. That's another way of centering men instead of their own desires.' For some women, of course, decentering men may indeed involve forgoing romantic or sexual relationships with them. Because at its core, decentering men is about interrogating the societal conditioning that encourages women to prioritize romantic commitment to men and the heteropatriarchal structures with which it intersects. For some women, this may include 'asking themselves where they learned to chase concepts like marriage and nuclear family and whether or not that desire is authentic,' says Febos. 'It could look like valuing and enjoying being single, putting friends back at the center of one's life.' Either way, 'this isn't about rejecting love,' says Taylor. 'It's about rejecting the patriarchal conditioning that tells us we must suffer for it, earn it, or mold ourselves to be worthy of it.'


Miami Herald
an hour ago
- Miami Herald
Carlos Alcaraz roars past Jannik Sinner in epic French Open final
The French Open opened two weeks ago with a tribute to retired 14-time champion Radal Nadal and the Big Three of his generation. It ended Sunday on the clay court at Roland Garros in Paris with the unquestioned coronation of the Big Two. Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz cemented their mark as the future of men's tennis in a classic French Open men's final when Alcaraz fought off three consecutive match points in the fourth set and rallied for a grueling 4-6, 6-7 (4), 6-4, 7-6 (3), 7-6 (2) victory. "Honestly, I don't know what I did. Honestly, I don't know what happened," Alcaraz said on the TNT broadcast. "... I didn't think about anything else, just going point after point and putting my heart into it and getting all of my energy into it. I tried to not give up. We were in a final of a grand slam. There wasn't time to be afraid. There wasn't time to give up. I just tried to fight until the last ball." The 5-hour, 29-minute match was the longest ever for a French Open title, surpassing the 4-hour, 42-minute match at Paris in 1982 won by Sweden's Mats Wilander over Argentina's Guillermo Vilas. "First of all, Carlos, congrats. An amazing performance, an amazing battle, amazing everything," Sinner said following the match. "To you and your team, amazing job. I'm very happy for you and you deserve it. In defending his French Open title, the No. 2-ranked Alcaraz prevented world No. 1 Sinner from winning his third consecutive grand slam title. Even after five hours, a run of elite shot making continued with Alcaraz forcing the tiebreaker in the fifth set by holding serve. Alcaraz appeared to be in control while leading in 5-3 in the fifth set and served for the match at 5-4. But Sinner broke Alcaraz's serve to get to 5-5 then won his own at deuce to lead 6-5 before Alcaraz held serve to send the match to a tiebreaker at 6-6. Alcaraz roared out to a 7-0 lead in the 10-point fifth-set tiebreaker and was leading 9-2 when he sprinted across the baseline and ripped a forehand up the line for the winner. He immediately slumped to the red clay in relief. In a contest that featured countless twists, turns and tense moments, there was no bigger spot in the match than the seventh game of the fourth set, when Sinner broke the serve of Alcaraz, giving him a 4-3 lead. The Italian steamrolled through his own serve to go up 5-3 and had three championship points in the next game. But Alcaraz, of Spain, wasn't quite ready to relinquish his crown, coming back to hold serve. And any nerves Sinner had on those championship points continued into his service game. Sinner could muster just one point, putting the match back on serve at 5-5 when his shot went long. After two holds, Sinner and Alcaraz went to another tie-breaker. Sinner jumped to a 2-0 lead, with Alcaraz closing out seven of the next eight points to send the match to a two-set tie, setting up his final set heroics. When it was done, Alcaraz called it the best match of his young career, ahead of his previous four grand slam victories. "This match is the first one where I came back from two sets down and I think there wasn't a better location than a Roland Garros final against a No. 1 in the world in Jannik," Alcaraz said. "It was the perfect place to come back from two sets down. It was the best match I played in a grand slam and I'm really proud and happy this happened." The 22-year-old Alcaraz will next attempt to win his third straight trophy at Wimbledon, which begins June 30 in London. Alcaraz now leads their head-to-head meetings 8-4. This was their first clash in a Grand Slam final and the first time Alcaraz came back from a 2-0 deficit in a major to win a match. He had been 0-8. Both entered the match undefeated in grand slam finals. Sinner moves to 3-1, and Alcaraz to 5-0 in Grand Slams. The Spaniard now has back-to-back French Open wins to go with victories at Wimbledon in 2023 and 2024, and at the U.S. Open in 2022. Sinner won the past two Australian Opens and the 2024 U.S. Open crown. In fact, since Daniil Medvedev won in New York in 2021, no one other than Sinner, Alcaraz, Nadal or Novak Djokovic has won a Grand Slam event. --Field Level Media Field Level Media 2025 - All Rights Reserved