(VIDEO) Coco Gauff shares awkward moment with Ben Shelton in US Open doubles match

During the US Open exhibition match, America’s young tennis stars Coco Gauff and Ben Shelton had an awkward moment. The fourth and final Grand Slam of the year will begin officially on August 26, and players from all over the world will compete to secure the ultimate prize.

Gauff and Shelton played an exhibition doubles match against Stefanos Tsitsipas and Paula Badosa. The contest was labelled ‘Mixed Maddness’. When the match was levelled at 2-2 in the first set, Shelton can be seen celebrating, but he failed to notice that Gauff was ready to give him a high five. Instead, she ended up high-fiving herself.

Gauff will be looking to forget about that and focus on her title defence in the singles category. She lifted the title last year after beating Belarus’ Aryna Sabalenka in the final with a score of 2–6, 6–3, 6–2. She is coming into the competition after going through a difficult campaign in the recent past. She recently participated in the Cincinnati Open, where she was knocked out of the competition after losing in round 32 to Yulia Putintseva with a score of 6-4, 2-6, 6-4. That result was enough for Gauff to lose the second spot in the WTA rankings to Sabalenka.

On the other hand, Shelton has also not been coming into the match with a good performance in the recent past. His most recent appearance came in the Cincinnati Open where his journey came to an end in the quarterfinal to Germany’s Alexander Zverev with a score of 3-6, 7-6, 7-5. Shelton had an impressive outing at the US Open last year, where he played in the semifinal. However, he ended up on the losing side while facing Serbia’s legendary tennis star Novak Djokovic in straight sets with a score of 6-3, 6-2, 7-6.