ELEVEN WEEKS AGO, Coco Gauff stood on Court Philippe Chatrier and hoisted the Suzanne Lenglen Cup as thousands of fans showered her with an ovation.
It was the second major title of her young career, following a stellar clay season, and she looked poised for more success throughout the rest of the year.
But on grass she was unable to find any momentum. She lost in the opening round of her lone warmup tournament ahead of Wimbledon. And at the All England Club, three weeks after her triumph in Paris, she was upset in the first round in straight sets.
“I feel like mentally I was a little bit overwhelmed with everything that came after [the French Open],” a disappointed Gauff said following the loss. “I didn’t feel like I had enough time to celebrate and also get back into it.”
But the early exit meant Gauff, 21, would have more time to prepare for the North American hard-court swing and the year’s final major at the US Open. She won the title in 2023 and was an early contender to win it again.
On Thursday, Gauff was back in front of an adoring crowd yet again — this time, in front of 24,000 people at Arthur Ashe Stadium. She was victorious in her second-round clash against Donna Vekic, and the fans showed their appreciation for everything Gauff had overcome in the match. She had been visibly struggling throughout.
“Honestly, today was a tough match for me, but I’m just happy with how I was able to manage it. It’s been a rough couple of weeks,” Gauff said before she began to cry. “You guys really helped me a lot so I’m doing this for myself and I’m also doing it for you. No matter how tough it gets inside, you can do it.”
Now, into the third round in New York following her hard-fought 7-6 (5), 6-2 win over Vekic, Gauff currently has the fourth-highest odds on ESPN BET to win the title and is certainly the fan favorite. But while she has found a way to keep winning, it has been a roller-coaster ride, on and off the court, to get to this point.
After struggling with her serve throughout the summer, she made changes to her team in hopes of correcting it in the days leading up to the tournament. While players fire and hire new coaches all the time, few do so close to a major, and even fewer when they are trying to implement such a consequential technical fix.
It’s a high-risk gamble and one that Gauff hopes will have a high reward. But even she knows just how big of a challenge it is during arguably her most important and favorite tournament of the year.
Still, no matter what happens this fortnight, she believes it’s worth it.
“I mean, a tournament is a tournament,” Gauff said. “I hate losing regardless of where I am. If this was a 250 [level], I would feel just as crazy to do it.
“Yeah, I felt this was a good opportunity. I don’t have that many points to defend honestly in this part of the season. I’m one of those people, I’m looking at long-term. I hope I can get it all together … by then [but] if not, I have the rest of this year to work on it. But I do know I needed to make a change, technical change to it, and I don’t want to waste time continuing doing the wrong things.”
Gauff wasn’t looking to make such a drastic change immediately before the US Open.
She liked her coach Matt Daly, who started working with her last year after the US Open, and she went on to win the China Open almost immediately after. But she could no longer deny the severity of her serving troubles. During her second-round match at the Canadian Open at the end of July, Gauff had 23 double faults — the most in a WTA match since 2019. Remarkably, because of her incredible all-around skill set and fierce backhand, she won the match, but her problems continued. She had 42 in total during her three matches at the tournament.
At the start of the US Open, Gauff led the WTA this season in double faults — and she had 95 more than anyone else.
A powerful weapon when at its best, she is capable of serving over 128 miles per hour. But her serve has also let her down in many key moments throughout her career. After being eliminated from the 2024 US Open following a fourth-round loss that saw her record 19 double faults, Gauff had tried to face her serving woes head-on.
She fired Brad Gilbert and brought in Daly, a grip specialist. With his guidance, in addition to longtime coach Jean-Christophe Faurel, Gauff changed the positioning of her hands on the racket — and she saw immediate results. In addition to winning the title in China, Gauff ended the year as the champion at the WTA Finals in November.
It remained an effective change on the slower clay courts. But since the tour returned to the faster speeds of grass and the hard court, it became abundantly clear to Gauff — and those around her — that if she wanted to achieve the lofty career goals she had set for herself, her serve needed a complete overhaul.
Like a basketball player changing their shooting motion, or a golfer switching their swing, that is no small undertaking. And last week, when Gavin MacMillan, a biomechanics expert who most famously helped Aryna Sabalenka overcome her serving yips in 2022, became, in her words, “magically available,” Gauff knew she couldn’t wait any longer. Gauff couldn’t risk him joining someone else’s team, so she made a “quick decision.”
Last Wednesday, four days before the start of the main draw, Gauff was spotted on the practice court with MacMillan and Faurel, leading to immediate speculation of the changes she had made. She later confirmed she had parted ways with Daly and brought in MacMillan. They immediately got to work — and were even seen back on the then-mostly-empty practice courts as the rain poured down later in the day.
“The practice week was tough because I was spending a lot of time on court literally serving until, like, my shoulder was hurting,” Gauff said after her opening-round match on Tuesday. “Yeah, it’s just tough.”
Many around the sport were stunned about the timing. Andy Roddick, the 2003 US Open champion who spent a few days working with Gauff in 2023, called it “ambitious” on his appropriately named “Served” podcast.
“It’s very surprising that a player, a top player, would do that right before a major especially,” said player-turned-commentator Patrick McEnroe on a pretournament media call. “But one of the things you’ve got to love with Coco Gauff is she wants to get better. She’s open to hearing from different people.”
Gauff, who didn’t want to share too many specifics about the changes when asked, compared it to learning a new language. Former world No. 1 and four-time major champion Jim Courier noted during a Tennis Channel broadcast that she was “doing a little bit different things with her hip, her shoulders, [and] with her racket toss” and called it “highly complicated stuff.”
“To put it into practice in real time, I cannot stress enough how much that takes guts,” he added.
Gauff told reporters she was trying to “not become obsessed with [it]” but it was clear it’s been dominating her thoughts, as she confessed to looking at pictures and tagged posts of her service motion on social media.
During her first-round match on Tuesday, Gauff brought everything she had learned during six days of practice with MacMillan. Playing on Arthur Ashe in the night session against unseeded Australian Ajla Tomljanovic, who had literally ended Serena Williams’ career on the same court three years prior, Gauff proved just how hard such a big change can be.
In the tightly contested 6-4, 6-7 (2), 7-5 victory that lasted just under three hours, Gauff lost six service games and had 10 doubles faults — including two back-to-back while serving for the match at 5-4 in the deciding set. She later said she was “mentally exhausted” and admitted how hard it was to focus on the new changes and not revert to old habits during the heat of the battle.
“It’s a new motion,” Gauff said after the match. “At times I do it well, and at times not so well. When I do it well, or when I do it, it’s always a good result. It’s just reminding myself how to do it. But obviously there are so many things going on in my head at those tough moments and not just thinking about the serve. I’m thinking about how to play out the point, where to serve, what she’s going to do.”
Ultimately, Gauff said it was “the match that I needed” due to its intensity and highly stressful moments, and “a good test.”
Playing again in the prime-time night match on Ashe on Thursday night, Gauff had another shaky start. She double-faulted seven times in the opening set and was broken in four of her service games. After double-faulting to lose yet another service game and with the score even at 4-all, Gauff was seen crying into her towel during the changeover. Not long after, trailing 6-5 and having been broken in the previous game in part because of two double faults, Gauff desperately practiced her serve while Vekic needed a medical timeout.
The unexpected chance to reset seemed to help Gauff, as she then forced a set tiebreak and took control. She took a brief break before the second set to splash water on her face in the bathroom and regain her composure. A much more lopsided second set ensued. Perhaps most impressively of all, she had just one double fault. She couldn’t hide her relief at the match’s conclusion.
“I think it was just nerves and just pressure, honestly, and I’m someone that usually can thrive on that,” Gauff later told reporters. “There’s been a lot on me this tournament, more than usual, which I expected coming in. So yeah, basically what you saw out there was what it was, and I was able to reset through it. But yeah, it was a challenging moment for me on the court.”
Gauff will next face No. 28 seed Magdalena Frech on Saturday. Gauff has won both of their previous career meetings, including a 6-1, 6-2 rout in the Round of 16 at the 2024 Australian Open, so it could be another crucial opportunity to make progress before the competition gets even harder. If she were to win that match, a blockbuster showdown with the resurgent Naomi Osaka, a two-time US Open champion, could await in the fourth round.
Gauff has repeatedly found ways to win, this week and throughout her career, even when her serve is letting her down, and she may need to do that again this tournament. But while her goal in New York is to reclaim the trophy, her present focus is solely on implementing the changes she has learned.
She knows that doing this — no matter how uncomfortable or inconvenient — is the only way to achieve her ultimate goals. And even the moments of panic and confusion, as clearly torturous as they have been for her, will only help her in the long run.
“I think this whole tournament will stick with me the rest of my career, knowing that if I can get through, like, two tough matches feeling how I’m feeling, I know I can get through pretty much anything,” Gauff said on Thursday night. “I know regardless, I hope I get more Grand Slam finals and when those nerves come, I’ll recall this feeling and know that it probably can’t get much worse than this.”
