Meet Emma Navarro, the American billionaire heiress eyeing her first Grand Slam title at the US Open

In 2021, she told Charleston Magazine that her dad helped her get into tennis.

“He wanted it to be a family sport,” she said. “I have two older brothers, and they both played. As soon as I was old enough and strong enough to hold a racquet, I was out there on the court with them.”

He’s been an important mentor to her ever since.

“My dad has always been in my corner, getting me the coaching and training, whatever I needed,” she told Charleston Magazine.

She made sure to give her mom, Kelly Navarro, a shout-out, too, calling her “the behind-the-scenes lady who makes everything happen.”

In an April 2024 interview with the Tennis Channel, Emma Navarro credited her dad for her mindset as an athlete, calling him “the smartest guy” she knows.

“He’s taught me a bunch about the perspective I want to take into things, especially on-court stuff,” she added.

Navarro, then 18, lost in the singles final to Canadian Leylah Fernandez 6-3, 6-2.

However, she and partner Chloe Beck defeated Alina Charaeva and Anastasia Tikhonova 6-1, 6-2 in the doubles final, winning the championship.

She made her WTA debut that same year at the Charleston Open.

Navarro finished 6-1, 4-6, 7-5 against Elise Mertens to win her first WTA singles title.

Since January, Navarro has played in more than 10 tournaments around the world, including the Australian Open, the Cymbiotika San Diego Open, and the Trophée Clarins, where she reached the final, Wimbledon, the Olympics, and the US Open.

In addition to defeating Gauff during Wimbledon, Navarro defeated Grand Slam champion and then-world No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka in the fourth round of the BNP Paribas Open, commonly known as Indian Wells, in March 2024.

Navarro lost 6-7 (7), 7-6 (4), 6-1 to Qinwen Zheng during the third round of the Olympics, after which the two shared a tense moment while shaking hands at the net.

Multiple outlets reported that Navarro said she “didn’t respect” Zheng. She added, “I think she goes about things in a pretty cut-throat way. It makes for a locker room that doesn’t have a lot of camaraderie, so it’s tough to face an opponent like that, who I really don’t respect.”

“But kudos to her, she played some good tennis there at the end. She played better than me, so congrats to her,” Navarro added.

Zheng responded to the criticism, saying, “If she’s not happy about my behavior, she can come and tell me” and added that she’d like to correct it “to become a better player and a better person.”

Zheng went on to win the gold medal in women’s singles, becoming the first Chinese player to win a singles gold medal.

Navarro defeated Anna Blinkova in straight sets on Monday — in just under an hour — to continue her dominant winning record.

She has won 45 singles matches this year, per the WTA, and is the second-winningest player on the tour this season behind only world No. 1 Iga Świątek (who has 50 wins).

In her post-match press conference, Navarro told reporters “it’s pretty insane” to think about how close she is to reaching the top 10, but acknowledged that her goals and day-to-day life have largely stayed the same.

She added that “it’s cool” being able to “zoom out” and recognize the difference between where she started and where she is today, then to “zoom back in and just get really detail-oriented.”