Gonzales Xavier Austin Jr. and Louisa Misun Chirico’s love story began in July 2015 at a baggage claim in Toronto.
Both were professional tennis players who had flown into Toronto Pearson International Airport to compete for Team USA in the Pan American Games, a multisport event that is held every four years for athletes from North, South and Central America as well as the Caribbean.
When the tennis team, consisting of three women athletes and three men, met at the airport, Chirico and Austin started chatting naturally. “I feel like we became really good friends immediately,” said Chirico, 30, who still plays professionally. (Austin, 34, now works in finance in New York City, where the couple lives.)
During the opening ceremony at the Rogers Center, the two were together backstage. “You get a really long period of time to sort of hang out and make your way through the tunnel, and I just remember seeing Louisa talking to other teams and talking to the swimmers and other athletes,” Austin said. “I was like, ‘Oh man, I think I’m going to have to take up her attention because there are a lot of interesting guys that she can be talking to.’”
Over the next two weeks, they ate dinner together in the athletes’ village and played Monopoly and watched movies in their hotel rooms at night.
By the end of the Pan Am tournament, “we both were crushing on each other,” Chirico said. But because they were playing different tournaments, they were not going to see each other for months and settled for texting and talking on FaceTime daily instead.
Their first official date took place at the end of November 2015, when both were in New York City visiting family. They walked up and down the High Line. “I wasn’t making much money at that point,” said Austin, who was transitioning into professional tennis while studying at Vanderbilt, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in economics and political science.
“I thought the High Line was a very New York, very free date,” Austin said. They also saw “Spectre,” a James Bond movie, and ate sushi in Manhattan’s East Village.
The pair hung out the next two days, walking through the Metropolitan Museum of Art and having dinner with Austin’s cousins and best friend from growing up. “It felt like we were immediately dating,” Chirico said. “The tennis world is so small, so we shared the same friends, and it felt like we were both vetted a little bit so we could move faster.”
In December they were at a United States Tennis Association training center in Boca Raton, Fla., and their hotel rooms were coincidentally right next to each other. They hadn’t told anyone they were dating, but one of their coaches joked they should date because they were hitting it off.
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At the time Chirico was ranked 111 while Austin was in a lower tier, which meant they played different tournaments. “When you are making your way up, you have to travel around to random locations and play events that aren’t as glamorous as what Louisa was playing,” Austin said. “So we would only get these little pockets of time like a weekend here and there every couple of weeks.”
In April 2016, they met up in Prague, where Chirico competed in a tournament, and got to explore the old town and take romantic photos at the castle. When Chirico was playing the French Open in May, Austin came to Paris for a few days. “We walked to the lock bridge where everyone locks their name, but we didn’t do it because there was no space,” said Austin, referring to the Pont des Arts, a pedestrian bridge on the Seine.
Things got easier in 2017 when Austin quit professional tennis and moved to New York City for a job at Goldman Sachs. “Then only Louisa was traveling 25 to 30 weeks a year,” Austin said. “We only had to navigate her travel schedule.”
The pandemic gave them the opportunity to live together, first at Chirico’s family’s house in Westchester County, N.Y., and then at an apartment they rented together in 2021 in Manhattan. They hosted a Friendsgiving dinner and played tennis together in parks around New York City.
In 2022, when live tournaments were back in full swing and an injury Chirico had suffered was healed, Austin quit his job in finance and became Chirico’s coach so they could be together more. “Essentially we got tired of doing long distance, and I got tired of investment banking,” he said.
“It was great for me to have somebody who was there with me all the time who could practice wherever we were and help me train,” Chirico said. The arrangement lasted until 2025 when Austin hurt his shoulder and couldn’t help her train anymore. He joined PEP Capital, a Miami-based venture fund, and moved back to New York City full time.
On Nov. 18, 2025, 10 years after their first date on the High Line, Austin proposed to Chirico on a trip to view fall foliage in upstate to the Maker Hotel in Hudson, N.Y. Chirico had her suspicions about what was going to happen. “I had a little feeling,” she said, laughing. “We had been talking about it for five years.”
“She had never seen me plan so much for a weekend,” he said. On Saturday morning he went out to get coffee and pastries and came back with a diamond ring and a proposal.
“Ten years sounds like a long time, but we barely saw each other for more than a week at a time for the first few years we were dating,” said Chirico, explaining why they waited so long to get engaged.
They decided on Oct. 10, 2026, for a wedding date — both love fall in New York and there is a break from tennis after the U.S. Open — and as a venue, Casa Cipriani, a waterside private club and luxury hotel in downtown Manhattan.
With 250 guests attending the wedding, many from out of town, they held a welcome party Friday night at Sake No Hana on the Lower East Side, where there was a buffet of sushi and hot food and speeches. The bride wore her mother’s reconstructed wedding dress that evening. “They took the sleeves off and put beads onto the bodice of the dress,” she said. “It was really special to wear that.”
The couple decided to forgo tradition and stay in their suite at Casa Cipriani the night before the wedding so they could wake up and drink coffee with one another and enjoy a quiet moment. They recited private vows that they had written themselves. “It was the best part of the day,” the groom said.
The formal ceremony was officiated by Dr. Alan Heldman, a mentor of Austin’s who was certified by the Office of the City Clerk in Manhattan. He wove in the couple’s family tree, which includes ancestors from Haiti and the Philippines on the groom’s side and Italy and Korea on the bride’s.
The reception party then ensued with the couple doing a choreographed first dance to the R&B song “So Into You” by Tamia. “I think we heard it together really early on into our relationship and it kind of just became our song,” Chirico said.
The dancing continued until 2 a.m.
On This Day
When Oct. 10, 2026
Where Casa Cipriani, Lower Manhattan
Skipped Rehearsal The bride and groom were meant to attend a rehearsal ahead of their wedding ceremony, but the photographer convinced them to skip it and go to Battery Park to take photos because the lighting was so good. “I was running around in my dress, and people were congratulating me,” Chirico said. “It was like out of a movie.”
A Tennis Guest List There were around 30 tennis players at the wedding including Madison Keys, currently ranked among the top 25 in the world in singles, and her husband, Bjorn Fratangelo, a retired player. “The tennis world is small so we’ve all known each other for a long time,” the bride said.
Geese Theme There is an old Korean wedding tradition where the groom would traditionally gift a pair of wild geese or wooden Mandarin ducks to the bride’s parents to show he could provide for her. As a nod to it, the couple had images of geese everywhere including on their invitations and on match boxes.
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