Naomi Osaka's agency signs 15-year-old Australian tennis player Cooper Kose

WIMBLEDON, England (AP) — Cooper Kose is an Australian tennis player who just turned 15 two weeks ago, has braces on his teeth and plenty of big plans in his head. He was a hitting partner for Coco Gauff and others at the Australian Open and signed on the eve of Wimbledon with the agency co-founded by Naomi Osaka.

Osaka, a four-time major champion and former No. 1-ranked player whose group also represents 2022 Wimbledon runner-up Nick Kyrgios and Anna Kalinskaya, practiced with Kose in Los Angeles in April at UCLA.

“I thought Cooper was a really good player. He kind of reminds me of Nick, a little bit — just with the way he swings on his forehand. And then I asked him who his favorite player was, and it was Nick, so it made sense,” Osaka said Sunday at the All England Club, where the year's third Grand Slam tournament begins on Monday. “It’s going to be cool to watch him grow.”

And make no mistake: Kose is still growing. He said he wears a size 14 shoe and is already 1.88 meters tall, which is about 6-foot-2, and doctors have told him there's more to come. That size helps him generate power on the serve — which both he and 2023 Wimbledon quarterfinalist Chris Eubanks, who hit with Kose in Australia in January, say reaches 120 mph (200 kph) — and forehands that are the foundations of a game Kose calls “pretty complete, to be honest.”

“He’s like a raw, uncut gem, with a lot of belief in himself,” said Stuart Duguid, Osaka's longtime agent who co-founded the management group EVOLVE with her two years ago. “Our theory was if — if — he can cut it, he’ll be the type of player we want to represent.”

Which, Duguid explained, is a talented athlete who has “the potential to transcend tennis.”

“You can tell those that have some magic and may touch lives outside of just the ones that surround us when we come to Grand Slams. A long way to go, to be sure, but it seemed like he had a chance to do that,” said Duguid, who added that EVOLVE also is bringing aboard another teen, Yi Zhou, a 19-year-old from China.

“I hope he wouldn’t mind me saying it, but Cooper reminded us a lot of ‘The Big Guy,’” Duguid said, nodding in the direction of Kyrgios, who has been working as a TV commentator while sidelined since wrist surgery and was making a promotional appearance near the All England Club.

Kose said in a telephone interview from Gold Coast, Australia, that he first was taught to play tennis at a young age by his grandfather, who died last year. Kose said his mother and grandparents ran an indoor tennis facility in Melbourne, and he's been told he first found himself with a racket in his hand when he was 18 months old.

He hasn't played in a junior Grand Slam event — and might not. He's eager to start accumulating ATP rankings points and see how he can fare against older players, hoping to improve his net play while trying to learn as much as he can about the sport and life on tour.

“My ultimate goal is to become world No. 1 and win multiple Grand Slams and basically be a good role model for up-and-coming kids,” Kose said. “And try to make a name for myself.”

Asked about meeting Osaka and hitting with her, Kose recalled with a laugh: “She couldn’t really believe my level. She was a bit shocked at how old I was — like basically everyone else I meet.”

Count Eubanks among those who had that reaction.

“I was really, really impressed. He hits the ball really, really well. He seems to love the game. So I took a liking to him. Such a nice kid,” Eubanks said. “He’s young, but he’s got an incredible game. Finding out he was (14) was a big shock. We’re playing full-on baseline games off the ground, and he’s holding his own."

Duguid first heard about Kose when Gauff's coach, Brad Gilbert, mentioned the Australian during a TV broadcast from Melbourne Park. That eventually led to Duguid and Osaka meeting Kose in LA.

Kyrgios' manager, Daniel Horsfall, will be involved with Kose's career.

“When I spoke to Cooper the first time, a lot of the things he was saying, or how he portrayed things to me, reminded me a lot of Nick back when we were growing up together,” Horsfall said.

Howard Fendrich has been the AP’s tennis writer since 2002. Find his stories here: https://apnews.com/author/howard-fendrich

AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis

Japan's Naomi Osaka at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club ahead of the Wimbledon tennis championships in London, Sunday, June 30, 2024. (John Walton/PA via AP)

This photo provided by EVOLVE shows Cooper Kose and Naomi Osaka in Los Angeles, in April 2024. Kose, an Australian who recently turned 15, has signed with EVOLVE, the tennis agency co-founded by four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka and agent Stuart Duguid. (Stuart Duguid/EVOLVE via AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Inflation in the United States is slowing again after higher readings earlier this year, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Tuesday, while adding that more such evidence would be needed before the Fed would cut interest rates.

After some persistently high inflation reports at the start of 2024, Powell said, the data for April and May “do suggest we are getting back on a disinflationary path."

Speaking in a panel discussion at the European Central Bank's monetary policy conference in Sintra, Portugal, Powell said Fed officials still want to see annual price growth slow further toward their 2% target before they would feel confident of having fully defeated high inflation.

“We just want to understand that the levels that we’re seeing are a true reading of underlying inflation," he added.

On Friday, the government reported that consumer prices, according to the Fed's preferred measure, were unchanged from April to May, the mildest such reading in more than four years. And compared with a year earlier, inflation dropped to just 2.6% in May, from 2.7% in April, the government said.

Excluding volatile food and energy costs, “core” prices also barely rose from April to May. On a year-over-year basis, core inflation fell to 2.6% from 2.8% in April. The latest inflation figures were a sharp improvement from early this year.

In his appearance Tuesday, Powell said the U.S. economy and job market remain fundamentally healthy, which means the Fed can take its time in deciding when rate cuts are appropriate. Most economists think the Fed's first rate cut will occur in September, with potentially another cut to follow by year's end.

The Fed chair also said the job market is “cooling off appropriately,” which likely means that it won't heighten inflationary pressures through rapid wage gains.

“It doesn’t look like it’s heating up or presenting a big problem for inflation going forward," Powell said of the job market. “It looks like it’s doing just what you would want it to do, which is to cool off over time.”

FILE - Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell speaks during a news conference at the Federal Reserve in Washington, June 12, 2024. Powell will be in Portugal on Tuesday, July 2, 2024, to take part in a panel discussion on central banking policy with members of the European Central Bank. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)