Coco Gauff made a strong start to her campaign at the Italian Open. She defeated Tereza Valentova 6-3, 6-4 to advance into the Round of 32. With the tournament being the Americans’ final form of preparation before her title defense at the French Open, she is determined to go on a winning run. However, Gauff also believes that results from previous tournaments do not necessarily determine what will happen at the next event. When familiar failings crept into her game, she kept her calm and pulled the famous Rafael Nadal mantra.

“Obviously, it would be great to have a deep run here. To have some momentum before Roland Garros. But every tournament is new, and you know the Rafa quote: What happened in Madrid, happened in Madrid, and now we are in Rome, and then we will be in Paris. I think I live by that quote because you can have an awry season and your tennis is funny. All it takes is one good week, and your season can go from bad to good,” she said during her post-match interview.

Gauff echoed the same mantra at Madrid last month. The 22-year-old was still not through with her defeat to Aryna Sabalenka in the Miami Open final, but then echoed Nadal’s sentiment and admitted that there is no point in thinking about the past.

“Obviously, I would love to have a title. I really wanted it to be Miami, but at the end of the day, I’m here in Madrid, like Rafa said, and we’re not going to talk about everything else,” she said.

Notably, the quote that Gauff has referred to multiple times was originally used by Nadal ahead of the Italian Open back in 2019. The Spaniard had come into the tournament after recording three consecutive semifinal defeats in Monte Carlo, Barcelona, and Madrid, respectively. He delivered the iconic line when the reporters had asked him about his previous results.

“What happened in Monte Carlo happened. What happened in Barcelona happened. What happened in Madrid happened. And now we are here. We are in Rome,” Nadal had said during a press conference 7 years ago.

Gauff put in a solid performance in the first round of the Italian Open. She broke Valentova’s serve six times in two sets to wrap up the match in an hour and 34 minutes. Though the American wasn’t strong on her own serve as Valentova broke it four times, she balanced things out by winning more than 60% of the points on her opponent’s service games.

This was Gauff’s second victory over Valentova, and she has now taken a 2-0 lead in the H2H record. The two had previously met in the second round of the 2025 French Open, where the American had recorded a convincing 6-2, 6-4 win. Gauff has now also improved her win-loss record for 2026 to 20-8.

Though the World No. 4 didn’t drop a set in the match against Valentova, there were evident issues with her service. Gauff even got quite frustrated with herself at one stage and let out her anger on the court.

Coco Gauff’s serve issues resurface at the Italian Open

The two-time Grand Slam winner’s biggest challenge last year was her serve. There was hardly a match where she didn’t serve a double-fault, and her serve issues worsened so much that she hired biomechanics specialist Gavin MacMillan in August to help refine her service motion.

The efforts began paying off at the Wuhan Open, where Gauff didn’t commit a single double-fault and fired five aces during her 6-1, 6-0 victory against Moyuka Uchijima in the first round. She pulled off another clean performance in her comprehensive 6-3, 6-0 victory over Leolia Jeanjean at the Madrid Open last month.

However, it is safe to say that Gauff’s serve issues truly never went away, and they have now resurfaced at the Italian Open. She served seven double-faults during her first-round clash in the tournament. One of these errors came when she was leading the first set 5-3. After committing the double-fault, Gauff was heard saying, “You always do this.”

Commentator Liam Broady wasn’t a big fan of Gauff’s “self-talk” and explained why he didn’t like her reaction to the error.

“I don’t like that self-talk, I have to say. You always do this; it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. You have done this, but you don’t always do it. You’ve got to stay strong; the second you give in to those inner voices, it’s big, big trouble,” he said while commentating for Sky Sports.

Gauff has continued to serve double-faults this season despite MacMillan’s presence in her team. She currently leads the WTA Tour for double-faults this year, and that too by some distance. The American has committed 183 double-faults so far this season, which is 51 more than Mirra Andreeva’s tally of 132.

Will Gauff be able to improve her service issues as the season progresses further, or is it time for her to part ways with MacMillan? Let us know what you think in the comments!