At 21 years of age, Coco Gauff has more Grand Slam experience in her pocket than many players get over the course of a career. 25 Grand Slam main draw appearances in the books. Two—stunning—major titles. 74 wins.
All that experience has enabled the Florida native to keep her gaze directed firmly on the future, even after a disappointing 6-3, 6-2 loss to Naomi Osaka on Monday in Arthur Ashe Stadium.
“I feel like I put so much pressure on myself at my age of 21, and I realize how much the girls on tour are being successful at 25, 26, at those ages,” Gauff said. “For me, it just gets me excited to realize if I have four more years of just working as hard as I am right now and actually doing the right things, where my game could be.”
Credit Gauff for refusing to take the easy road. When she won the French Open title in Paris in June, she admitted that she felt she had not played her best tennis, and immediately set herself on a path to remedy that situation. After a triumph like that, most players would be content to roll the dice on what got them there, even if they felt stagnant. Not Gauff.
Desperate to steepen her growth arc, she hired biomechanics specialist Gavin MacMillan when he became available during the week before the U.S. Open commenced, hoping to shore up her serve in the name of becoming a more complete player.
Gauff was seen working on the stroke on the practice courts in the rain just a few days before she would play her first-round match.
During her second-round match with Donna Vekic, the weight of all her effort finally overwhelmed her. She was in tears during the match, but survived the tussle and then cruised in the third round against Magdalena Frech. When all was said and done, Gauff admitted that she felt a little hollow during her match with Osaka.
“It’s disappointing,” Gauff said. “For sure it was not the level that I wanted to bring, but it is a step in the right direction, I feel. I maybe was a little bit empty—she forced me to earn every point out there today.”
Though Gauff was composed at the podium during her post match press conference, the 2023 US Open champion admitted that she was still processing a lot of raw emotion, and still wondering why she fired an uncharacteristic 33 unforced errors, and never found a way to earn a break point against four-time major champion Osaka.
“I’m trying to be positive in front of you guys,” she said. “ I promise you that I don’t feel that way right now, but I am not going to let this crush me.
“I look forward to the future and making more improvements. Hopefully next year I can grow a lot as a player and as a person.”
There’s no reason to doubt that she will. The fact that the two-time major champion has elected to get out of her comfort zone and focus on areas that she thinks will make her a more complete tennis player is a testament to her self-belief and ambition.
“I know the improvements that I need to make, and I feel like I’m making the right decision by making them,” Gauff said. “I wish I had more time between this tournament and Cincinnati, but that’s the cards that I was given.”
The top-ranked American woman says she plans to treat the rest of the season like a training camp for the 2026 Australian Open. She wants to keep working on her serve and keep making herself a better player.
“Whatever happens for the rest of the year, I just want it to be improvement,” she said. “I don’t care about results.
Regarding her serve, she said: “I think where my serve started from the start of the tournament to today was a big improvement. I feel like now I just have to get everything to work together.”
