Get to know Emma Navarro, the rising tennis star making waves at the 2024 US Open
The American tennis player comes from a sporting family and has been on a steep rise in 2024, defeating world number three Coco Gauff at both Wimbledon and the US Open.
Tennis
Emma Navarro is enjoying a stellar year of tennis.
The latest chapter of her impressive season saw Navarro take down fellow American and world number three Coco Gauff in the 2024 US Open, booking her spot in her first quarter-finals at Flushing Meadows.
Navarro battled past Gauff 6-3 4-6 6-3 in a hard-fought affair over two hours 12 minutes, the second time this year that Navarro has got the better of her to reach the final eight of a Grand Slam.
Get to know the Paris 2024 Olympian as she continues her rise through the tennis world.
Emma Navarro’s sporting background
Navarro’s success on the court should come as no surprise, given she comes from a sports-mad family.
Both she and her sister Meggie played collegiate tennis at the University of Virginia, and their grandfather was the late Frank Navarro, a former American college football player and coach.
Her father, Ben Navarro, is a billionaire businessman who himself has a keen interest in sport. The former vice-president of Citigroup once tried to buy an NFL team, the Carolina Panthers, in 2018, and owns the Charleston Open on the WTA Tour.
Navarro speaks candidly about her dad’s influence on and off the court, often seen in her box showing his support on her remarkable rise.
"I gotta give a lot of credit to my dad,” she said about him in April to the Tennis Channel. “He's probably the smartest guy I know and has dropped a lot of knowledge and wisdom on my siblings and I over the years. He's taught me a bunch about the perspective I need to take."
Emma Navarro is enjoying her best season so far in 2024.
Navarro, an impressive year on tour
Navarro has been on an upwards trajectory since her college career, where she won the 2021 NCAA women’s singles championship and reached number one as a freshman.
Since turning professional in 2022, Navarro has enjoyed her best season on the WTA Tour in 2024 at a career high of world number 12.
She claimed her maiden title in Australia at the 2024 Hobart International, and in July made her Olympic debut at Paris 2024. Navarro reached the third round and was unfortunate to not go further, losing in three sets with two tiebreaks to eventual Olympic gold medallist Zheng Qinwen.
But her standout result came at Wimbledon against one of the favourites in Gauff.
Navarro defeated Gauff in straight sets in the round of 16, inflicting revenge for the loss in their first meeting in January 2024. It was a statement and certainly the biggest one of her career, before bowing out at the quarter-final stage to Jasmine Paolini.
Now, the 23-year-old has followed that Wimbledon win up with another superb victory in the all-American affair at Flushing Meadows.