For New Balance and Coco Gauff, the future of tennis sneakers looks a little bit like the past of basketball sneakers. Gauff’s first signature shoe, the CG1, which debuted in August 2022, used a mid-cut silhouette derived from the shapes of old-school basketball models. Her second signature shoe, the CG2, revealed by Gauff and New Balance today, nods to the New Balance 550, an archival NB shoe from 1989 that became a retro powerhouse this decade.
The mudguard of the CG2, running below and then in front of the “N” on the lateral side of the shoe, comes straight from the New Balance 550. The tongue on the CG2 has a graphic depicting a tennis ball in motion a la the basketball icon found on the tongue of the 550.
“The 550 is one of my favorite shoes to wear off the court. It’s so classic and I love its ’90s-inspired basketball influence,” says Gauff, the 20-year-old tennis phenom who’s currently ranked no. 2 in the world. “The basketball stitching on the tongue is one of my favorite details. I wanted to bring this into the CG2 while making it unique to me, so we put a tennis ball instead.”
The New Balance CG2 will launch first in an oxidized blue and yellow “Power and Grace” colorway on Aug. 21 for $170. The colorway is inspired by the Statue of Liberty and the glowing lights of New York City, per New Balance. The model has a multi-density FuelCell midsole with an embedded carbon fiber plate, New Balance says. It arrives days before Gauff will take the court at the US Open and look to repeat her championship performance at New York’s Grand Slam leg.
The New Balance CG2 launches on Aug. 21 in the ‘Power and Grace’ colorway for $170. Via New Balance
New Balance plans to make distribution for the CG2 a bit wider than Gauff’s first signature outing—there will be more pairs in the market.
“From a sales point of view, we kept the CG1 pretty tight,” says Josh Wilder, senior product line manager for New Balance’s tennis line. “We didn’t want to blow it out of the water, make it available everywhere, make it so it was discounted everywhere. We’re building something with Coco, and we understood that.”
Wilder sees a future where, as Gauff’s signature line grows, more club-level fans and even non tennis players can get the shoes. Especially now that she’s more proven as a player—Gauff added a US Open singles title in 2023 and a French Open doubles title in 2024 to her resume in the time since her first shoe came out.
New Balance started work on Gauff’s second signature shoe in the fall of 2022, not long after it released her first. The quick pivot to the sequel was a bit of a surprise to her, according to the people at New Balance who brought the shoe to life.
“Coco was still getting used to [the CG1], and that’s when we started to bring her CG2 conversations and concepts,” says Evan Zeder, New Balance’s director of global sports marketing for tennis and baseball. “I think she was a little thrown off at first, because I don’t think she fully realized, ‘Oh wow, I’m going to be working this far ahead.’”
The New Balance CG2 on feet. Via New Balance
At around the same time, Gauff, who’d been signed to New Balance since she was 14, was working on a contract extension with the sneaker brand. Zeder says that the conversations around her re-signing with New Balance and her getting another signature model didn’t necessarily overlap.
“It all kind of happened concurrently,” says Zeder, “but I think ultimately we were able to have each conversation a little bit separated.”
New Balance aimed to refine and build on the shape of the CG1 rather than start from scratch for the CG2. The stack height across the two shoes is the same, as are the rounded curves that make up their respective designs. The radiuses from the outsole of the CG1 were molded into those that appear on the CG2.
“We did so much work on the CG1 in getting her in it and then making it fit for her,” says Wilder, “that there really wasn’t much that we really wanted to change or really, really transition her into.”
Gauff did become a Grand Slam champion in the first shoe, after all.
Gauff won the 2023 US Open in the New Balance CG1. Via Getty
New Balance went through three or four prototypes in creating the CG2. In addition to drawing from the New Balance 550, Gauff’s second signature pulls inspiration from Paris.
“Paris is my favorite city,” says Gauff, “and I wanted some of the shapes of the CG2 to almost mimic its architecture.”
According to Wilder, the sneaker’s triangular shapes, like diamond-knit mesh on the collar and Ndure on the toe cap, are references to the Louvre. Given the Parisian ties, it’s not hard to imagine that New Balance might have originally planned to roll out the sneaker around this year’s Summer Olympics, had Gauff fared better at the games, or the French Open. Asked about this, Zeder notes the complications that come with shoes themed around the Olympics, an event that’s notoriously strict about product tie-ins.
“We can’t build our product based off of how she’s going to do in a Slam because there’s only one person who walks away happy every year,” says Zeder.
Even internal references to New Balance’s history come with checks and balances. When a designer first pitched the CG2 tongue label riffing on the New Balance 550, Wilder had to get clearance from the team that works on New Balance’s lifestyle shoes.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold your horses,” was his response when he saw the 550-style tongue. “I don’t know if we really can do that.”
Other details in the shoe speak more to Gauff’s personal history and beliefs. The New Balance designers working on the shoe wanted to mine the significance of the number two for her specifically.
The CG2’s triangular shapes are inspired by Paris and the Louvre. Via New Balance
“[Gauff] is spiritual and wanted to look at everything we could from a numerology point of view, what the number two actually means,” says Wilder. “And the number two is, according to numerology, the most feminine number, and it represents both power and grace.”
The New Balance CG2 has the word “power” woven into the inside of the tongue label of the left shoe and the word “grace” on the right, serving as reminders for Gauff, and other wearers, of the power and grace that tennis demands.
On Gauff’s player exclusive pairs, the tips of the shoe laces feature the names of her brothers, Cody and Cameron. Wilder says his team thought about having the retail version of the CG2 use the same detail, but decided to keep it just for Gauff. The idea is that the last things she sees before she steps on court, as she ties her shoes, are her brothers’ names. Their shared initials are repeated in the design, too.
“I love how the initials ‘CG’ are incorporated throughout the shoe. Not only are they my own initials, but also the initials of my parents and brothers,” says Gauff. “Family is so important to me, and the details are small reminders that feel like they’re with me on the court.”
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