Coco Gauff Debuts Signature Tennis Sneaker From New Balance

Coco Gauff has made plenty of history in her young career, and she’s not done yet. During an exhibition match on Sunday, the tennis phenom debuted her new signature tennis shoe from New Balance.

According to ESPN, the New Balance Coco CG1 will be available Aug. 26 for $170. The pair Coco wore at the Atlanta Open were purple, pink and orange, but the CG1s are offered in either Pompey, which has “a gradient fade along the collar” and DigiCoco. I’m not a sneakerhead, so I couldn’t possibly tell you what those words mean in actual colors, but let’s assume one of them is the design she played in.

“The entire team at New Balance from design, to marketing, truly cares about me as a person and not just an athlete and that relationship allowed us to create the Coco CG1,” Gauff said. “I signed with New Balance at such a young age and I am so excited to know that I will continue to work with them for a long time into the future! The Coco CG1 is a vintage looking shoe with a modern twist, and I am so excited to get this in stores and see how people style it!”

The shoes are also packed full of advanced features like a FuelCell midsole, which apparently brings “a propulsive feel in a players lateral footwork;” Energy Arc technology that “increase[s] stored energy to deliver a higher amount of total energy returned” and obviously an NDurance rubber outsole for better traction on different surfaces.

So, what I’m getting is, these shoes make you Iron Man. Yes, New Balance wants us to know how much technology and money they put into these sneakers, but don’t make it sound like they’re going to actually turn me into Coco.

Crazy tech aside, there are some really cool, authentic design touches. The 2022 French Open finalist’s signature is on the tongue, while the heels feature a basketball and a track spike to represent her parents’ collegiate sports careers, the coordinates of the park where Coco grew up are on the left toe and “You can change the world with your racket,” a quote from Coco’s dad Corey is on the right toe.

All that advanced tech must be working since Coco easily won both her Atlanta Open exhibition matches. On Sunday, she defeated fellow American Taylor Townsend 6-3, 6-3, then beat 2020 Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin 6-1, 6-2 on Monday.

World No. 11 Gauff is preparing for the US Open, which kicks off Monday, Aug. 29 and airs live on the ESPN Networks.