I had never been a massive tennis fan. My grandmother, once enjoying her retirement in Florida, would watch entire tournaments and I would join her from time to time, but I was busy; school, work, or some extra curricular occupied so much of my time that I did not have enough left over to deeply invest in the world of tennis. Most of my entertainment for the sport derived from my grandmother yelling at the TV:
“Stop pulling your nose and serve the damn ball!” she would yell at Rafael Nadal.
“Look at what she’s wearing this time!” she would exclaim over Serena Williams.
I had fond memories of tennis, but mostly because of my grandmother, not because it was a sport I was passionate about. I would describe myself as a casual viewer at best, mostly getting my tennis news from ESPN recaps. But then around 2022, something changed.
A young American started to make more and more of the headlines I saw: teenaged professional Coco Gauff. I started to pay closer attention to her progress, seeking out updates instead of passively receiving them. In both singles and doubles, Coco was on the rise reaching both the singles and doubles finals at the French Open. It was exciting to see an emerging American as Serena Williams started offering signs of an impending retirement. I was too young to see and fully appreciate the rise of the Williams sisters, but now, as an adult with a flexible schedule, I was not going to miss out on the rise of the next great American tennis star.
As 2023 began, Netflix released a documentary series, Break Point, that showed the world beyond the court. The personal stakes, sacrifices, pressures, and the mental and physical endurance required to be great was laid bare by several current players. My personal investment in the sport beyond Serena and Coco began to grow, and those closest to me noticed.
Though we were knee deep into 2023, 2021 Topps Chrome Tennis was released in May of 2023. Throughout the summer my husband, Bryan, started picking up boxes here and there from our local card shop. The product featured base refractors in a dozen parallels of varied numbering including a Clay Court Refractor exclusive to Hobby boxes and Rose Gold Refractors numbered to ten. The product also featured ON-CARD AUTOGRAPHS, a huge bonus in the age of many products relying on sticker autographs. The product was fun to open and the potential to pull a Billie Jean King on-card auto during the summer of the 50th year of equal pay at the US Open was a fun possibility.
The main reason we were so interested in the product, however, was Coco. This was a high quality, brand name product with legends, parallels, and, I cannot stress this enough, on-card autos. It had been easy for me to casually collect my Shaq cards, but Serena cards were rare and pricey. The opportunity to more easily seek out an array of beautiful, consistent Coco cards was thrilling. As the summer drew to a close and the product’s quiet release lowered prices, Bryan started ordering cases of the product for us to rip as the US Open kicked off.
Coco was having a successful run, advancing seamlessly onward until it looked like she had a real shot at making a run for her first Grand Slam win. The first week of September we were sitting at our dining room table, stacks of cards surrounding us, the US Open on the television. Bryan had opened the foil pack, done a quick slide of cards to preview what colors to expect, when he gasped: “I see gold!”
He slowly started to reveal card after card, sweating the gold until we started to let parts of the card peak out. We had opened enough of the product and seen enough of her base cards to know the small details of the card design that indicated it could still be a Coco as we slowly slid the cover card down one corner, then the other, until he pulled it away: a Gold Refractor out of fifty of Coco Gauff in her clean white New Balance outfit, racket in her right hand, left hand formed into a celebratory fist, a smile shining across her face. We were so thrilled to have pulled the card on our own at such a pivotal time in her career. The triumph was made even sweeter when just days later Coco came back from losing the first set to win her first Grand Slam at her home-country tournament of the US Open against powerhouse Aryna Sabalenka.
Now one year later, the release of 2024 Topps Chrome Tennis coincided with the excitement of the US Open all over again. As we watched the tournament’s final matches this past week, I have been reflecting over my growing collection of Coco cards and the joy and pride it brings to me. Much of my collection has been thoughtful gifts from Bryan. Some are self-pulled and some are really great pick-ups from various sources. When we set up at Culture Collision earlier this year I had a small sign to indicate we were seeking Coco Gauff cards, and another vendor gifted me a slabbed Black and White Mini Diamond Coco. I think collecting Coco’s cards has made me a better collector and has refined my focus when it comes to my collection.
I also think tennis is on the brink of an American renaissance with the next generation of greatness following the retirements of Serena Williams and Roger Federer. The approaching retirements of Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic who have dominated the men’s game for so long leaves room for a surge of Americans like Taylor Fritz, Frances Tiafoe, and Ben Shelton to rise up. With Coco’s win last year at the US Open at 19 years old, the new school is here and the coinciding Topps product releases to draw interest to the sport in the hobby. While I do not relish the rising prices and competition, being able to see tennis gain more traction from card collectors has been very satisfying and I hope to see it continue to grow.
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