Mumbai: From the edge of the baseline on her forehand side, Coco Gauff sprinted the width of the court to the left. The crosscourt return came spinning and stayed low on the bounce. Gauff had to lunge to get there, slightly off-balance, but she connected sweetly with a two-handed backhand. The down-the-line winner was well celebrated in the Arthur Ashe Stadium by Gauff and the partisan American crowd.
With that winner, she overcame the tough challenge posed by Australia’s Ajla Tomljanovic, sealing the first round of the US Open 6-4, 6-7 (2), 7-5 on Tuesday.
In many ways, the match point represented all the strengths and weaknesses in Gauff’s game.
The first serve clocked 105 mph (169 kph) on the speedometer. It was a body serve but was not accurate enough to trouble Tomljanovic. The world No.79 returned with interest, needing Gauff to push back with a slice. Tomljanovic then hit a heavy forehand cross court which was replied with a short return. The Australian came up to the net and played a clever slice towards Gauff’s backhand, only for the American to pull off an excellent winner on the run.
The strengths: Gauff’s movement – she is one of the best, if not the best, runners on the WTA tour – tenacity and stroke play. The weakness: her serve.
Neither of these aspects are secrets.
Now in her fifth year as a professional, Gauff already has an enviable resume. The 21-year-old is a two-time Grand Slam champion, and has won 10 tour titles and reached a career high of world No.2 (she’s currently No.3).
A serial double faulter, Gauff has been working hard on addressing the chink in her armour.
She served 23 double faults in her second-round match at the Canadian Masters last month. At the first three Grand Slams of the year, she double faulted 95 times – one short of four full sets. And before coming to the US Open, she had hit 320 double faults in 48 matches in 2025.
On Tuesday evening in New York, she hit 10 more.
But a week before the US Open, Gauff made a crucial change in her support staff. Matt Daly, who is a grip expert and was instrumental in her success towards the end of last season with a title at the 2024 WTA Finals, has now been replaced by biomechanics specialist Gavin MacMillan.
Long before Gauff’s service troubles emerged, a certain Aryna Sabalenka hit a record 428 double faults in the 2022 season. MacMillan helped the Belarusian make a few adjustments to her arm movement during the service motion. Now she is the world No.1 and defending champion at the US Open.
Gauff, the 2023 winner of the title in New York, is now working to make changes in her own serve. But it has not been easy.
“Really tough,” she said in her on-court interview. “Honestly, mentally exhausting. But I’m trying. (The serve) wasn’t the best today, but at 30-all (in the final game), it came in when it mattered. It’s improved from last week in (Cincinnati), and I’m just trying to improve with each match.”
Though the serves have been inconsistent, Gauff’s groundstrokes have carried her through. And she needed them to be on song against the hard-hitting Tomljanovic.
The American was down 0-2 in the opening set, but the third seed is known to dig deep. She did just that to eventually level at 4-4 before taking the opener.
The Australian continued to fight through the second, with both players trading breaks, before Tamljanovic took the set after the tiebreak. It did seem like the deciding set too would go to a tiebreaker, only for Gauff’s groundstrokes to help her grind out the win.
Next, she takes on another tricky opponent, former world No.17 Donna Vekic, in a few days. Though she is working on it, her serve continues to be a liability, one that can’t be fixed overnight.
Even subtle changes to the service motion takes weeks of practice and patience to perfect. Which is why players tend to work on such changes during the off-season.
Gauff though, is ready to try making changes on the go.
“I know I needed to make a change, a technical change to it, and I don’t want to waste time continuing doing the wrong things,” Gauff had said during a pre-tournament press conference.
So far, she’s had to grind and hit her way out of trouble. Now she’ll hope she can start serving her way into good positions as well.
