{"id":1022661,"date":"2026-08-25T07:06:23","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T07:06:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1022661\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T07:06:23","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T07:06:23","slug":"woman-battling-breast-cancer-meets-coco-gauff-at-the-cincinnati-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1022661\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman battling breast cancer meets Coco Gauff at the Cincinnati Open"},"content":{"rendered":"

Woman battling breast cancer meets Coco Gauff at the Cincinnati Open<\/p>\n

\"Ashley<\/a>MASON, Ohio \u2014<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tennis star Coco Gauff had a thrilling end to the Cincinnati Open on Sunday, defeating Jessica Pegula for her second Cincinnati Open women\u2019s title.<\/p>\n

One person who was perhaps just as thrilled as Coco got to see her play in the tournament during a trip of a lifetime.<\/p>\n

Roberta Eaton, a 79-year-old woman from Atlanta, has had a tough year, battling a second bout with breast cancer and taking care of her ill husband.<\/p>\n

When her children wanted to do something to celebrate her upcoming 80th birthday, a lightbulb went off to get her to Cincinnati for the annual tennis tournament.<\/p>\n

Eaton has been a tennis lover and a spectator since the late 1960s. No matter the time or place, when Coco is playing a match, Eaton is watching.<\/p>\n

\u201cI followed Arthur Ashe, I followed Zina Garrison and the Williams sisters forever, and I still follow them, and then Osaka and Coco,\u201d Roberta said.<\/p>\n

This year, Eaton has faced a couple of fierce opponents of her own.<\/p>\n

Her husband suffered a brain injury due to sepsis, and breast cancer made a return 20 years after she beat it for the first time.<\/p>\n

When her daughter N\u2019Jeri got tickets to the Cincinnati Open, she posted them on social media and tagged Gauff.<\/p>\n

\u201cI posted it on Tuesday night (and) at some point on Thursday, I got connected to Coco’s assistant,\u201d N\u2019Jeri Eaton said. \u201cShe told me it was her dad who actually saw the video first and then shared.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another fan who had courtside seats made sure to look out for Coco\u2019s biggest fan and brought her down to her seats.<\/p>\n

From there, Coco\u2019s team and the Cincinnati Open staff coordinated to make Roberta\u2019s dream come true.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has been the absolute time of my life,\u201d Roberta said.<\/p>\n

Roberta will be 80 on Sept. 6. <\/p>\n

Originally, her kids wanted to get her tickets to see Coco at the U.S. Open, but Roberta said she loves Cincinnati and has family here, so she wanted to be at this year\u2019s tournament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Woman battling breast cancer meets Coco Gauff at the Cincinnati Open MASON, Ohio \u2014 Tennis star Coco Gauff…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1022662,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[48],"tags":[15634,67759,2210,409129,1888,409130,409128,57168,409126,62,1464,409131,38518,6620,409127,1443,67,132,68,11459],"class_list":["post-1022661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-breast-cancer","tag-cincinnati-open","tag-coco-gauff","tag-courtside-seat","tag-fan","tag-fierce-opponent","tag-ill-husband","tag-lifetime","tag-roberta-eaton","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-tennis-star-coco-gauff","tag-ticket","tag-time","tag-tough-year","tag-tournament","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-woman"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117154886852905958","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1022661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1022661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1022661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1022662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1022661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1022661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1022661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}