Coco Gauff has taken the tennis world by storm, showcasing her incredible talent and unwavering determination. After beating world No. 1 Iga Świątek on her way to winning the Cincinnati Open, one might wonder what fuels this young athlete's success. While she may not consider herself a culinary expert, Coco's training diet plays a crucial role in her performance. Let's take a closer look at what this tennis star eats to stay at the top of her game.
A Balanced Breakfast for a Powerful Start
For Coco Gauff, breakfast is all about striking the right balance between protein and carbohydrates. “Today, I had eggs, potatoes, sausage, and fruit,” she says. “That's usually what [breakfast] looks like.” This combination provides a long-lasting energy boost, essential for rigorous training sessions. The carbohydrates provide the necessary fuel for intense workouts, while the protein aids in muscle repair and growth. Protein also slows down the absorption of carbs, preventing rapid spikes and crashes in blood sugar levels.
While Coco opts for a healthy and balanced breakfast, she admits that if she wasn't a professional athlete, she would happily indulge in pancakes every day. To satisfy her sweet cravings, she chooses fruit as a healthier alternative.
On match days, Coco Gauff prefers a lighter breakfast. "Eggs and some toast - I love almond-butter toast - or a fruit bowl," she said to EatingWell when laying out her pre-match breakfast. Although she typically skips the meat portion of her breakfast on match days, she is still consuming some protein. The almond butter contains enough protein to keep Gauff satiated until lunch, while the creamy spread is also a great source of healthy fat.
Lunch: Versatility and Fuel
The tennis star’s midday meal is “always different,” especially depending on if she’s got a match that day. Lunch for Coco varies depending on her schedule. During tournaments, pasta is her go-to choice. “I just love pasta, and I feel like it's an easy way to fuel,” she says. Pasta is a carb and calorie-loaded food that makes it possible to consume a lot of sustenance without actually consuming a ton of food. In a press interview, Gauff revealed that penne reigns supreme when it comes to before-match meals, as it's a simple, less messy pasta shape (via Tennis). When she doesn't mind getting a little dirty, though, spaghetti is what really wins her heart.
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When she’s not gearing up for tennis, she’s all about a hearty bowl with rice or beans, chicken, and avocado-one of her favorite toppings. Cultures throughout the world have different versions of the rice bowl, too. Preparing different takes on the dish can not only nourish the body, but take the eater on a world tour. Replacing the chicken with salmon and the beans with chickpeas is a simple way to switch up a diet and retain vital nutrients. Adding salsa and sour cream easily transforms the staple into a Latin-inspired version of the dish.
Dinner: Protein and Veggies
When she's in season, dinner is almost always a protein, like salmon or chicken, with vegetables. Coco’s not big on red meat, “but every now and then” she will have a steak. As for Gauff, she leans toward the lighter proteins, but protein is nevertheless the centerpiece of her dinners. She pairs her meals with a hearty portion of veggies, noting to Women's Health that her air fryer has come in clutch when cooking Brussels sprouts.
Coco is now spending more time in the kitchen this summer, she considers the air fryer key to whipping up a quick dinner. “I think it's the easiest thing ever, and it's pretty easy to clean,” she says. In fact, Coco impressed herself with a recent attempt to make air fryer Brussels sprouts and salmon: “It actually did come out good!”
Hydration: The Secret Weapon
Coco’s secret to staying hydrated through long days of practice and playing tennis? However, during matches, it's all water all the time. Everything from our skin and nails to our heart and brain need plenty of water to operate at optimal levels. If you've ever tracked your water, you know that it's not such an easy task to drink that much in a day. Gauff does drink plenty of water, but she also uses Pedialyte to stay hydrated. That's right, Pedialyte isn't just the ultimate hangover cure or your toddler's after-sick drink; it's also an athlete's not-so-secret weapon. In addition to the electrolyte beverage, she occasionally drinks pineapple juice.
Sweet Treats and Snacks
Remember that sweet tooth? Well, Coco’s been craving brownies “a lot lately”-but her sugary treat of choice changes by the day. “After I won in Cincinnati, I had a hamburger, and after the hamburger I had ice cream,” she says. “So I like ice cream a lot, but I think brownies are probably my favorite right now.”
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Professional athletes are always on the go, especially if they have achieved Olympian status. Not only does this active lifestyle make you more hungry, but it could also all too easily give you less time to sate that hunger. Snacking is a great way for athletes like Coco Gauff to incorporate needed calories and sustenance in between training and matches. Her enjoyment of fruit salads could certainly be seen as one such snack, but Gauff isn't afraid to bring along processed snacks, too. Potato chips, protein bars, and any other kind of crunchy chip she can get her hands on are her go-to snacking foods, as she told EatingWell. Seaweed chips, dried fruit crisps, and flavored potato chips are all things she likes to munch on. Protein bars come in many different flavors from many brands.
Pasta Passion
Pasta lovers, rejoice! Noodles are so much more than just a versatile lunch for Coco Gauff; she actually eats them whenever. In 2023 when she competed in Beijing, the tennis champion raved about all the pasta she was eating there. Lunch and dinner pasta dishes are a given, but you don't see very many people opting for a bowl of noodles at breakfast time. It's not just the noodles served up in China that have Gauff salivating. The tennis pro loves pasta so much that she has been a spokesperson for Barilla since 2019. With how much pasta Gauff eats, it's a sponsorship that makes quite a lot of sense.
Indulging in Moderation
Olympians are widely thought to be the best athletes in the world and subsequently some of the healthiest humans amongst us. That doesn't mean they deny themselves the decadence of junk food, though. While she needs to stay in peak physical shape to bring home the match wins, Gauff loves dessert and is okay with adding it to her diet - especially after successful matches. While her tastes do change every so often, she told Women's Health that brownies are one of her favorite desserts. She's also a sucker for other classic treats, as she likes a good ice cream after a hearty meal. Those who follow Gauff on social media have likely seen an occasional dessert of hers while scrolling through their feed. It's not just chocolatey baked goods that have Coco Gauff salivating, but chocolate candy as well. She told EatingWell that Twix and KitKats are two of her favorite chocolate bars, though she doesn't get to have them as often as she would like. We've gone over her love of chips, but we kind of missed one: Gauff has also posted on X that she loves chocolate chips.
Gauff's Overall Approach to Diet and Training
Gauff made her debut as a tennis pro at age 14 and hasn't looked back. Along the way, she's netted endorsements with global brands such as Rolex, Ray-Ban, and New Balance, including a signature shoe. As of 2025, Gauff is pulling in an estimated $25 million in endorsements, plus about $12.2 million in winnings, according to Forbes. Every day of training is still an investment in her future, Gauff told BI in an interview ahead of the US Open, arranged through her latest partnership, a signature smoothie from Naked.
Gauff's approach to her career is a study in contrasts between Gen Z nonchalance and the underlying edge of discipline befitting a veteran athlete. Her training regimen centers on agility as much as strength, and she's adjusted her serve to be more about spin than speed. "I'm still waking up in the morning. There's no mindset to go into it, but by the time my hour warm-up is ready, then I'm fully awake," she said.
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Beyond practicing tennis skills, Gauff spends long hours of strength training to build resilience, with exercises linked to longevity benefits, too. She uses movement combos to train for explosive power, such as a weighted squat to a box jump. Exercises such as banded "monster walks" and toe lifts help boost agility and protect the joints, muscles, and bones from wear and tear. "The main thing is a lot of injury prevention, which is great for any sport, but especially in tennis, because you are using those smaller muscles that you may not work on as much," Gauff said. It might not be flashy, but it works. "I haven't had a big injury yet, so I'm going to keep doing it," she said.
Even harder than the training itself is finding the time and energy for the full-time job of eating like a pro athlete. The biggest sports stars typically have their nutrition dialed in to an exact science. At 21, Gauff said, she's becoming more aware of what she eats. "I just go out there and rawdog it, to be honest," Gauff said about her strategy to stay fueled during training. It's a habit she's working to change, eating more regularly to make sure she's getting the right nutrients and to prevent excessive strain on her body. "My hardest part is definitely fueling while I'm having those long practices because I don't feel really hungry," she said.
Her go-to snack is fruit - carbs for quick energy and to help with muscle recovery. During the 2023 US Open, she went viral for eating fruit salad out of a reusable plastic container between matches. Her mom or dad packs it for her pre-competition, and ingredients vary: often pineapple (her favorite), grapes, honeydew, cantaloupe, or watermelon. Gauff said she also tries to get protein throughout the day from shakes and lots of eggs. "I always need protein. I take protein after practice, but to have it throughout the day on the go definitely helps a lot," she said. Lunch and dinner are often salads, lean meats such as chicken, and potatoes for more carbs.
Right now, she doesn't stick to a specific diet, a habit ingrained in her by her parents, who wanted her to avoid restriction and still be able to eat like a teenager even after she went pro. She loves fast food such as burgers and fries or Chick-fil-A. She also enjoys sweet treats like brownies and ice cream, and, if she had her way, would eat pancakes for breakfast every day, she told Women's Health. "I feel like as long as you're getting what you need, then everything is good in moderation," Gauff told BI. At the ripe old age of 21, however, Gauff told me she was becoming "more aware" of what she eats.