Tennis champion Coco Gauff is a fan of “heated rivalries.”
“I think I’m their biggest fan,” the American sports star said in response to the massive reviews for HBO Max’s queer hockey romance series on social media.
Gauff’s comments were made during the Australian Open’s media day press conference. “I kind of saw people talking about hockey shows and gay hockey shows, and I got interested in that,” she said, according to Tennis.com. “I thought, ‘Oh, episode six, it’s perfect.’Obviously, there are some nice spicy scenes. It’s a very beautiful love story. I think that was kind of the main thing.”
Based on the Game Changers series of novels by Rachel Reid, Rivals stars Connor Story as Ilya Rozanov and Hudson Williams as Shane Hollander, two professional hockey players who fall in love after a 10-year secret relationship.
In an interview with Tennis Channel, Gauff said, “I think the storyline is very relatable and I think a lot of people can relate to it. I think that was really cool. There was obviously sexual tension, and romantic tension. I love the metaphor of the enemy — well, not really the enemy — of the lovers, but both of them denying their feelings. I don’t know. I just feed off that stuff.”
Gauff then invited Story and Williams to watch her play, saying, “Hi Conor and Hudson, my name is Coco. I’m the number one fan of Tennis’ Rivals. Please come to my games and watch me play…I love you.”
She also encourages her tennis friends to check out the series. “I wanted the world to know about this show,” Gauff said. “I’ve been telling everyone, I told Jess Pegula and (Juliana Olmos) to watch it today. We’ll see how much we can convince the WTA to watch this show.”
Meanwhile, “Heated Rivals” creators Jacob Tierney and Brendan Brady attended the NHL game between the LA Kings and Pittsburgh Penguins in Los Angeles. Cheers and applause erupted as the two were shown together with scenes from the show on the jumbotron on the rink.
Rivals star Robbie, who plays Kip on the show, attended Saturday’s playoff game between the Seattle Seahawks and the San Francisco 49ers. A video of the actor on the field was posted to the Seahawks’ Instagram grid with the caption, “@robsgk in the cottage.”
