Coco Gauff: “Love Island” obsession forced me to delete Twitter off my phone

CINCINNATI, Ohio—Hold on, (King’s) Islanders: a new bombshell has entered the Cincinnati Open villa.

Coco Gauff dove deep into Love Island, her favorite summer obsession after a 6-3, 6-2 opening-round victory over Wang Xinyu, confessing the addiction caused her to go into a brief social media detox.

**Stream a replay of Gauff's Cincinnati win over Wang on the Tennis Channel App!**

“I had to delete Twitter after last week because I’m too involved with Love Island,” joked the world No. 2 in a madcap post-match press conference, “and then Tennis Twitter’s coming up, and you know, there’s all this drama from that and Love Island. Then for some reason, The Summer I Turned Pretty was coming up, and I’d never watched that, but I was into it even not watching the show!

“I was like, ‘Ok, I’m getting too addicted.’ So, I have no Twitter on my phone anymore.”

Gauff is one of the millions streaming the summer dating series where young singles couple up on a remote island in the hopes of finding everlasting love—all while the audience casts votes that impact the game. The series drops new episodes each day, making it an easily bingeable show for athletes traveling the globe.

“I got into it last season,” Gauff explained. “This season, I was actually able to start from the beginning. I had a really bad addiction that started right around French Open time. I would be like, first thing in the morning, waking up in Europe to watch Love Island at 6AM, and I couldn’t go on my phone until I watched it because I didn’t want spoilers.

The Roland Garros champion is still following fan favorites Nic Vansteenberghe and Olandria Carthen—also known as “Nicolandria”—but is reluctant to get into the acclaimed UK version of the series, fearing she would fall even deeper into the Love Island cinematic universe.

They would never cast me, but I would totally, if I didn’t play tennis, I would totally do it. It just seems so fun to be on vacation in Fiji. Coco Gauff on whether she'd ever compete on Love Island

“I went to a watch party for Love Island,” she exclaimed. “I’m in two Love Island group chats. I hosted a Love Island watch party. It was a bad obsession! I was thinking of doing, if I had time I was going to do a whole Love Island game with my friends where we had to dress up and couple up. I had it all planned out, but I didn’t have time in between Wimbledon and here. Next season, maybe!”

The questioned remained: could Gauff see herself as a future bombshell?

“Honestly, if I was single, then yeah!” she laughed. “I told my friends, I was like, ‘I want to get casted!’ They would never cast me, but I would totally, if I didn’t play tennis, I would totally do it. It just seems so fun to be on vacation in Fiji.”

The 21-year-old will aim to carve out her own Island paradise in Queen City, the 2023 champion drawing Wimbledon conqueror and No. 32 seed Dayana Yastremska in the third round.