Riddles and rhymes: Meet the unsung heroes behind U.S. Open player success

FLUSHING MEADOWS, N.Y. -- Most days during the US Open at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, the roar of the crowd from Arthur Ashe Stadium spills over to the set of practice courts just across a narrow walkway from the mammoth arena. It's the white noise of the low-stakes, and often low-key, courts. But throughout this year's tournament, one voice punctuates the start and finish of several high-profile practice sessions, infusing the sleepy courts with a surge of energy. Standing at the base of the stands Tuesday afternoon, Ayanna Campbell, a guest services representative, gets the crowd's attention as Coco Gauff begins to make her way to Practice Court No. 1. And at Campbell's instruction, the crowd joins her in a call-and-response cheer. "Knock 'em down, roll 'em around, come on Coco, work," Campbell yells, facing the packed practice court bleachers. On cue, the crowd yells back, "Work!" In her fourth year as a guest services representative at the US Open, Campbell, 24, is the ultimate hype woman. And while she's best known for her Gauff cheers, Campbell leads crowd cheers for a number of players to open and close their practice sessions. "It's an emotional thing for them," Campbell told ESPN. "So I know sometimes they feel a little [down]. So I'm just like, 'Hell, why not just give them a little pick-me-up?' Just practice. It might be something they wake up on and be like, 'I'm feeling down,' but then they might see that literally it's just somebody's up there cheering for them. The fact that I work here, I'm just like, somebody's up there cheering for them." She had the crowd spell out Carlos Alcaraz's name during his practice session. For Venus and Serena Williams, Campbell did another call and response: "When I say Serena, you say go!" and "When I say Venus, you say go!" "I got a double thumbs up from Carlos Alcaraz," Campbell said. "Serena, she was bobbing her head with it. Venus, she was doing a little dance to it. I was like, 'Oh yeah, I'm in there.'" Campbell's 'Work' cheer for Gauff is her second one of the tournament. In the early practice rounds, she hyped up the crowd with a call-and-response similar to her cheer for the Williams sisters: "When I say Coco, you say 'Go! Coco! Go!'" The new one, Campbell told ESPN, is inspired by the 2000 cheerleading film "Bring It On." "It's when the Toros are at their game and the other team, the Clovers, come and [the Toros] do their cheer: 'Knock 'em down, turn 'em around, come on Toros work,'" Campbell said. "And I replaced 'Toros' with 'Coco,' and everybody kind of just went with it, and then that's just how it became -- that was just it. And the rest is history." Campbell, born and raised in Hollis, Queens, wasn't alive when the film came out, but identifies as a "zillennial" and embraces pop culture from across the decades. "I know about all the little niche things from the 90s and early 2000s and now," she said. "So yeah, just like how the kids have '6-7,' well, I had '1738.'" To thank and acknowledge Campbell for her cheers, Gauff, who reached Thursday night's semifinals with a thrilling three-set win against No. 5-seed Mirra Andreeva on Wednesday, not only formed her hands in a heart toward Campbell after her practice sessions and smiled and laughed with her mom, but the tennis phenom also commented on several Instagram posts featuring Campbell and her cheers. "My queen! Love her," Gauff wrote on one. "Werkkkk," she wrote on another. Gauff, 22, is two years younger than Campbell. And for Campbell, who works as a special needs bus matron for her day job, seeing a young woman close to her age having immense success in her field -- or on her court -- is powerful. It's what drew her to following Gauff (and the sport) when Campbell worked her first U.S. Open in 2023 -- the same tournament where Gauff won her first Grand Slam. "She really gives me hope that, listen, you may be in your early 20s, but you could still do it," Campbell said. "... She's the one that actually put the sport on the map for me, because before I always knew that tennis, it's a sport, but I never knew how much time, effort, blood, sweat, and tears that the crews and even the tennis players themselves put so much work into it. So when I first started working here, I'm like, okay. And as the days were progressing, I'm really getting into really, oh my God, this is tennis. I want to watch it every chance I get." Campbell is just one of several staffers at the US Open connecting with Gauff during the tournament. Gauff even took time to mention them in her on-court interview after her third-round win against Cristina Busca. "Special shoutout to the US Open staff. There's one named Sharif; he's been giving me riddles. He's the only one who's not been making my day because I haven't been able to solve them." In his sixth year working the US Open, Sharif Cobb has given riddles to players since he began working as a men's locker room attendant during the COVID-19 pandemic. This year, though, Cobb is a supervisor and moves throughout the players' area. On the third day of this year's tournament, he ran into Gauff, and she had a request. "She comes in, and she was like, 'Hey, you're the guy that does the riddles, right?'" Cobb said. "And I'm like, 'Yeah, you want one?' And since then it's been like she's looking for me, and my team will be like, 'Hey, Coco just pulled up, go find her.' And it's like a cat-and-mouse game, almost." Contrary to what Gauff said in the post-match interview, though, she has solved some of Cobb's riddles. "She said she didn't solve any, but she solved two coming off the court," Cobb said. "I'm like, 'Coco, you're trying to solve riddles, go stretch. You just won a match.' "That was a complete lie. She solved a few. She solved one on the spot, I think, after she said that, to which I was just like, "I wish I had a camera to record you solving this.'" But Gauff doesn't get all of them on the spot. "I saw her yesterday," Cobb said Tuesday. "I gave her a riddle overnight. I trust her to come back with an answer hopefully, and then we'll move from there."