After becoming the first woman since Serena Williams to lift the French Open title, Coco Gauff’s performance has surprisingly gone a bit off track. She made early exits from both Berlin and Wimbledon. Following that horrible campaign on grass, Gauff was knocked out of the Canadian Open by the 18-year-old Canadian, Victoria Mboko. The teenager took just 62 minutes to beat the world number 2 in straight sets (6-1,6-4). However, more than the scoreline, Gauff’s constant trouble with double faults became the talk of the town after that. She committed 42 double faults in her three matches in Montreal!

Reacting to her serving woes, Coco Gauff said, “Obviously, I’m very disappointed with myself regarding that part of the game.” She claimed she didn’t take part in the 2025 Citi Open in order to fix these issues. Although, according to Gauff, she did well in the practice sessions, her failure to transfer those into her matches has sparked reactions across the tennis world. But amid all these concerns, Coco Gauff has now managed to clinch the doubles title alongside her compatriot, McCartney Kessler, in the Canadian Open.

They defeated the duo of Taylor Townsend and Zhang Shuai by 6-4,1-6,13-11 in this epic final. Gauff was playing in just her third doubles tournament since splitting with her long-time partner Jessica Pegula after the 2024 Paris Olympics. She had previously won this tournament with Pegula in 2022. Shortly after this match, Gauff shared a post on her IG stories, which featured pictures of her and Kessler with the “Champions” tag. She captioned that post saying, “lol temporarily came out of doubles retirement and got a dub!” Then, in another IG story, she shared glimpses of herself and her doubles partner posing alongside Townsend and Shuai after the match.

If we take a look at Coco Gauff‘s doubles career, she’s currently ranked 183rd in the WTA, and overall, she has won nine titles in her doubles career. Her best record in these events was reaching the 2021 US Open final alongside Caty McNally and then winning the doubles title at the 2024 French Open with Katerina Siniakova.

However, despite having all these successes in her doubles career, last year, Coco Gauff admitted that she has changed her goals a bit. Seeing her opting against playing doubles at the 2024 US Open, she was asked to reflect a bit on her future plans surrounding these double events. Replying to all the queries at that time, Gauff said, “I probably won’t play as much anymore. My goal was to always win a doubles slam. It’s kind of one of those things where I’m just, like, I don’t know if – I’ll maybe play every now and then.”

Now, it’ll be interesting to see if this title triumph encourages her to play more doubles events this year, or not. But interestingly, Gauff has found something weird when it comes to her serves in the singles and doubles events.

Coco Gauff explains the difference in her serve while playing doubles events

In the singles, Coco Gauff has now played close to 50 matches this season. Although she has managed to win a big title (French Open) this season, her serving woes have time and again popped up on the discussion table. She has already committed 250 double faults this season, and this can be a major concerning factor for Gauff ahead of the US Open. Different tennis experts have come up with different solutions in order to help her overcome this ‘double trouble’, but nothing has worked for the American as of now.

While having a conversation on this topic during her podcast on August 5, Serena Williams’ ex-coach, Rennae Stubbs, said, “My God, like her serve, I don’t understand why now she has literally two coaches. Nothing has changed on her serve…like the ball toss is so far ahead of her on the second serve.” Gauff is currently coached by Matt Daly and Jean-Christophe Faurel. Following a subtle jibe at her team, Stubbs gave her a few tips and tricks on how she can improve her serves and also advised her to follow her ‘idol’ Serena Williams’ footsteps.

“I mean, my suggestion to her would be, after the US Open, no Asia. Just shut it down like Serene would do,” said Stubbs. She believes the fast, hard courts may prove to be a bit tricky for the American to handle.

But amid all these, Coco Gauff observed an interesting thing in her game. After her R32 victory against Veronika Kudermetova in the Canadian Open, she spoke about the difference in her singles and doubles game. “My doubles yesterday, I hit zero double faults, so it was just, like, okay. It’s definitely positive. I just would like to serve how I do in doubles in singles, but that was the reason to play is just to give myself pressure moments. You know, it’s weird. I feel more pressure serving in doubles than in singles because I don’t want to sit here and give the match away for my partner.” All she now wants is to try to bring that same mentality in singles as well.

If we take a look at her record in the doubles events this year, prior to the Canadian Open, she had played doubles at just two tournaments (Madrid and Rome). In both of those occasions, she was defeated in the QF. But now, she has finally managed to go past the finish line. Share your thoughts on her title triumph at the Canadian Open.