When Coco Gauff won her first Grand Slam title at the US Open in 2023, many saw her following in the footsteps of Serena Williams and emulating her feats. While she has added another major trophy since, winning the French Open this year, Gauff has failed to deliver results consistently, something which Williams was a champion at. Moreover, Gauff has had a persistent weakness in her game: her tendency to double fault. It also indirectly affected her at the US Open as she switched coaches on the eve of the tournament in a bid to fix it. Recently, Serena Williams’ ex-coach, Rennae Stubbs, highlighted another reason why Gauff lost early at Flushing Meadows.

Gauff didn’t have the best of times at the US Open this year. She had to dig deep in her first-round match against Ajla Tomljanovic, which went to three sets. Subsequently, in the fourth round, Gauff suffered a tame defeat at the hands of Naomi Osaka. In that encounter, Gauff committed five double faults and won just 52% points on her first serve as against Osaka’s 94%. Gauff’s serving woes continued as Stubbs urged Gauff to find a permanent solution to this problem.

During the ‘Fudd Around And Find Out’ podcast, Stubbs said, “Unfortunately for Coco, it’s a bit of a struggle right now. And sort of, you know, I talked to you about this a little bit. You know, when you have a technique flaw in your game, whether it be, you know, in basketball, obviously, it’s like your shooting technique or something with your feet or your crossover or whatever it is, there’s always you’re always working on improving your technique on whatever it is.”

She added, “And Coco has arguably one of the greatest backhands we’ve ever seen in the game, but her forehand is really quite technically quite flawed and her serve has um become a technical issue for her.”

This comes after Gauff suffered a shocking first-round loss at the Wimbledon Championships a few weeks back. After winning her maiden French Open title, Gauff has struggled a lot, especially with her serves, which have become a big reason for her losses. Even as Gauff continues her serving struggles, legendary coach Rick Macci believed that she could reach the top of the WTA rankings if she could follow a major learning from the ATP Tour.

How can Coco Gauff be the World No. 1? Rick Macci has the answer

Last year, Gauff reached her career-best ranking of No. 2 after reaching the French Open semifinals. However, she couldn’t sustain the momentum and missed out on the chance to advance to the top of the WTA rankings chart. Though Gauff herself hasn’t put a lot of stock in the World No. ranking, it’s not completely off her bucket list either.

“Honestly, it’s not something that I think about, but obviously it’s something I want to touch in my career and maintain. So yeah, it’s definitely something I want to do, but it’s not fully in my mind,” said Gauff earlier this year.

But to reach that spot is a whole another task, and Rick Macci has an opinion quite similar to Stubbs in how Gauff can get there. He said, “Because Coco fights and can fly she never says good bye. Her serve will become her best shot and she contends again for the number one spot. If she is reprogrammed with the more compact explosive ATP FOREHAND the Delray Dart will be number one in the land.”

After a disappointing US Open campaign, Gauff is set to resume her season at the Asian Swing. She will be seen in action at the China Open later this month.