While giving her acceptance speech for the 2023 WNBA MVP award, Breanna Steward, a star player for the New York Liberty, took motivation from Coco Gauff.
Steward won the second MVP award of her career with 446 points, narrowly defeating Connecticut Sun forward Alyssa Thomas (429 points) and Las Vegas Aces forward A’ja Wilson (433 points) in one of the tightest MVP races in WNBA history.
Breanna Steward mentioned in her winning speech how Coco Gauff’s remarks from her victory speech at the 2023 US Open title had had an important impact on her. She then started quoting from the 19-year-old’s old speech.
Steward said: “Coco, what you said when you won the US Open stuck with me. I tried my best to carry this with grace and I’ve been doing my best. So honestly to those who thought were putting water in my fire, you’ve really added gas to it. And now I’m burning so bright.”
Gauff’s thoughts were repeated by Steward, who emphasized her wish to conduct herself with grace and be a good role model for her daughter Ruby. She added: “I do my best to carry myself with grace and be a great teammate and I want to be an example to Ruby about what it means to approach life with the humility and grit necessary to lead teams, to help others be great and to win at things that matter the most.”
Stewie 🤝 Coco
2023 @Kia WNBA MVP @BreannaStewart takes notes from 2023 U.S. Open Champion @CocoGauff while accepting her #KiaMVP trophy pic.twitter.com/PXN6YzjZyD
— WNBA (@WNBA) September 26, 2023
Coco Gauff in 2023
LWWWLLWLWW Currently the world no.3 (career-high), Coco played her last match on the 9th of September when she beat world no.1 Aryna Sabalenka 2-6 6-3 6-2 in the final of the U.S. Open to win her 6th career title.
This season the American owns an overall 45-13 win-loss record. Coco clinched 4 titles in 2023 in Auckland, Washington, Cincinnati and U.S. Open.
