Coco Gauff’s season has proved to be rather disappointing. The 20-year-old American opened 2024 with success in Auckland in the first week of the year, after which she was unable to achieve any significant results, dropping to 6th place in the ranking. Now the China Open could be an important chance to rediscover the sensations she experienced during the fantastic summer 2023, crowned with success at the US Open.
In an interview with WTA, Coco explained that she wants to use the tournament to put into practice the adjustments to her game, that she is working on with her new coach Matt Daly.
“I’m very excited. I think it’s going to be the same next year. I’m really excited about a new change and hopefully improving other parts of my game. Working with Brad has been great, we’ve had a great partnership. I think it was time to reset and add some things to my game that I felt I needed to do to have a better season next year,” she said, before talking about her serve: “There are other parts of my game that I want to work on, but right now I’m focusing on my serve. When I serve well, I play pretty well. For me, that’s the foundation of my game. The little bit that we’ve done is already a drastic improvement compared to three weeks ago. At this point, there’s no need to change the whole technique or reset everything, it’s just little things that, if I do them compared to a week ago, will help me.”
Her place at the end-of-year WTA Finals should not be in question and, asked about it, she explained: “I’ve never felt pressure to get to the WTA Finals, except the first year when I was trying to do it. This year it would be great to qualify and experience the Finals, but I’m also trying not to put too much pressure on myself because this is a new training structure and I’m adding things. With this tournament, in a way, we started the pre-season early. So I’m not thinking too much about it. If it happens, great. If it doesn’t, I’ll take a vacation, it’s a win for everyone. But everyone wants to be in the round of 16, so it would be great.”
Gauff concluded by talking about her upcoming Asian swing that will start, as I said at the beginning of the article, at the China Open in Beijing.
“This time I did more things. Last year I was very tired and did nothing. This time I adapted much more quickly and visited the Great Wall and the Forbidden City, which was fantastic. I was able to spend two weeks at home, so I feel reinvigorated and I hope to end the season on a high note,” she said.
This moment could be a sort of year zero for Coco Gauff. The young American will restart from the Asian season with a new coach and new ambitions, for the upcoming tournaments and for the next season, where she will try to return to being a tennis player capable of competing in all the Majors. The pressure accumulated after the triumph at the US Open has evidently played an important role in her season; precisely for this reason Gauff has made a clean break with the recent months and has resumed her path towards a new direction, which everyone hopes is the right one.
Regarding the split with Brad Gilbert, the young American’s former coach, who was André Agassi’s coach for a long time, personally announced the end of the collaboration with an official post on his X profile, in which he did not fail to thank Gauff for this journey that also led them to conquer a Slam.
“Thank you to Coco Gauff and the entire team for an absolutely extraordinary run in the summer of 2023 and for these 14 months of incredible teamwork. Coco, at only 20 years old, your future is incredibly bright and I wish you nothing but continued success. I cannot wait to begin the next chapter of my coaching career,” he wrote.
Coco, in response, wrote: “Thank you Brad, we have had an incredible journey and I wish you the best for the future.”
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