Coco Gauff signed with New Balance at the age of 14. She was so young when she landed her first signature shoe in 2022, designers added a charm detail to fit her interests. Now, at 21, Gauff is on her second signature shoe with the Boston-based brand, an effort that has shown her maturing view on style and performance.

As the only signature model for an active player in the sport, the Coco CG2 offers rarefied air in the sport of tennis. The debut model, the Coco CG1, launched in summer 2022 and featured colorways aplenty over two years, akin to a signature basketball sneaker. The Coco CG2 came in time for U.S. Open 2024, even now rolling out a fresh array of designs and colors while spawning a low-top Coco Delray model.

The Second Serve’s Tim Newcomb connected with Josh Wilder, New Balance’s footwear product manager for tennis, who has worked hand in hand with Gauff from the start.

How has your relationship with Coco evolved?
Our relationship with New Balance and Coco Gauff started when she was 14 years old. Now that she is 21, she has changed a lot as both a player and a person. I think at the beginning of the relationship with the Gauffs, a lot of the decisions were left to us. They would say, “You are the experts,” and “Lead the way.” A lot of the design cues were stuff New Balance already knew. As she matured, her design matured. The CG1 had charms on the top eyelet, and at the time she was a big fan of accessories. Over the years that has started to evolve, and the way she views product and color has been really awesome. We get a lot more critical feedback that we have all loved and welcomed.

What does the CG2 say that the CG1 didn’t say?
The CG2 was heavily influenced by the [New Balance] 550. A lot of tennis players, sneakerheads, and general consumers know, love, and have embraced the 550. While the CG1 was vintage with a modern twist and had a theme of ’90s basketball aesthetic, we were able to pull right from the archives from the 550 and give it a tennis twist with top performance attributes and the mid-cut silhouette Coco always wants. It was a nice collaboration of what Coco has always wanted in terms of a design aesthetic and what has been working with New Balance as a brand off the court. It married those two things up and was a great evolution.

What’s unique for New Balance tennis in the CG2?
She’s the only athlete for New Balance tennis that has the carbon fiber Energy Arc plate. We don’t offer it to the rest of the athletes, and that is something she has played in, tested in, validated in. It is awesome to see one of our top-tier technologies across running, basketball, and tennis be adopted by Coco. We are looking to further innovate in the future, looking to really advance it and change it up over the next year or two.

What’s an element of the CG2 you’re especially proud of?
It colors up extremely well, and it allows for a lot of versatility in the options we can offer. It looks extremely valuable in an all-white colorway, but for some of the most recent color-ups for Indian Wells and Miami we added a painted line on the midsole, and it took the shoe to a whole new level. It made it look faster, stand out more on court. The way we can color on the midsole geometry that is separate from the 550, that is the chef’s kiss of the product.

What are the Coco-specific callouts on the CG2?
The first version of the CG1 had a lot of Easter eggs because it was her first iteration of the shoe. The second one we pared it back a little bit and made it more tasteful. The coolest one is that the woven label on the tongue is from a 550 and we made it a tennis ball and added her signature. She does like those old-school basketball-type cues. We swapped out the tongue and made it specific to her, even though it is a nod to those woven labels from back then. On the underside of the woven label, when you are putting the shoe on, one shoe says “power” and the other one is “grace.” Those two words capture Coco perfectly. According to numerology, that is what the number two stands for: power and grace. Numerology isn’t for everybody, but as soon as we saw “power and grace,” we thought, “That is Coco to a T in the way she plays and handles herself on and off the court.” From the outsole standpoint, we hid “CG” right underneath the toe of the outsole. It blends itself into the design, but it is there if you look closely.

How does the CG2 pair up with on-court kits?
At New Balance, the tennis category is the most well-connected group in terms of footwear and apparel. The focus for many sports is on the footwear because the kit is a uniform. Tennis is, of course, a sport where you can lock up an athlete from head to toe. Within our walls we meet every other week specifically to talk about accessories to apparel and footwear color and staying very close to our color team, who understand the tennis schedule and know when things come out. Tennis is an international sport, and we are first and foremost tailoring our color for the tournament it is being played at, reminding people in Boston that tennis follows warm weather and we need bright colors. We try to use the tournaments as different personalities and use color to view those personalities. The French Open can be more elevated, fashion-forward, with maybe a couple neutrals, and the Australian Open more fun. It’s pretty cool educating everybody internally and externally on what the tournament is like and laddering that up to what we know our athletes like.

What’s one word to describe the CG2 technically
Energetic. To expand on that—and I know the question was only one word, but the combination of the FuelCell foam and Energy Arc carbon fiber gives a good propulsive feel, which in turn provides you energy for longer matches. It is energetic and lively, which is a challenge of a mid-cut shoe.

What’s one word to describe the CG2 aesthetically?
I was thinking versatile, only because the way we have designed it has led to a lot of people being able to wear it both on court and off court. The introduction of the Delray is a prime example of that.

What’s it like designing the only signature shoe in the sport for an active player?
It is equal parts exciting and then nerve-racking as well. Anytime you work on a signature shoe, you’re ultimately representing the athlete in a very pure form. It has their name on it. It has their signature on it. They are going to be the ones helping you market it and push it. The coolest part about it is ensuring their vision comes to life and making sure you hit all the checkpoints required to make that happen. With a signature shoe, brand goals are anchored around working with that athlete, ensuring that the vision they had at the start is coming to life.