Coco Gauff is finding herself become obsessed with her serve.
Ahead of the 2025 US Open, Gauff hired biomechanic specialist coach Gavin MacMillan, who previously helped now world no. 1 Aryna Sabalenka fix her serve. The 2023 Flushing Meadows champion began her campaign with a hard-fought win, defeating Ajla Tomljanović 6-4, 6-7 (2-7), 7-5 in two hours, 57 minutes.
“The practice week was tough, because I was spending a lot of time on court last week literally serving until my shoulder was hurting,” Gauff said in her post-match press conference on Tuesday (26 August). “I feel like it’s [going] in the right direction and I think for me, it’s trying not to go back to old habits in those tighter moments.
“I know when I did this, I was not going to serve the best. But I just felt like that I don’t want to waste any more time. If I could have worked with Gavin earlier, I would have, but obviously he was on the team of another player [Sabalenka]…hopefully this time next year, I’ll be serving much better.”
Gauff’s service game against Tomljanović saw the 21-year-old commit 10 double faults, broken six times and recording a 61 per cent first serve percentage at Arthur Ashe Stadium. She did record a higher percentage of first serve points won (66 per cent vs 58 per cent) and second serve points won (44 per cent vs 42 per cent) than her Australian opponent.