Coco Gauff has already played 44 matches this season, winning no less than 33 of them. However, despite putting up a decent performance this season, where we saw her lift the title at Roland Garros, there is one aspect of her game that continues to plague her. The American has already committed over 250 double faults this season. In fact, her numbers at the Canadian Open were straight-up concerning. 

She has played only three singles matches in this tournament this year, but has committed 42 double faults! Out of those, 23 came in her R64 match against Danielle Collins. Of course, many tennis experts have rung alarm bells. For instance, in March this year, while having a conversation on this topic, Serena Williams’ ex-coach Rennae Stubbs said that Gauff’s technique fails under pressure. A month later, she claimed Coco Gauff’s serve is going to be “a problem for her forever” unless she addresses this issue quickly. She looked quite surprised seeing Gauff hitting more than 10 double faults in almost every match. 

That’s something which Stubbs claimed was “unheard of.” Now, after seeing her exit from the Canadian Open at the hands of the 18-year-old Canadian, Victoria Mboko, Rennae Stubbs has yet again opened up Coco Gauff’s biggest weakness. On 5 August, on The Renne Stubbs Tennis Podcast, she first talked about all the good things that she has seen with the rise of this 21-year-old American tennis star. However, having said that, she added, “But 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 the pair of Matt Daly and Jean-Christophe Faurel.

Just a few days ago, Stubbs shared a tweet highlighting what Coco Gauff needs to do in order to improve her serve. Reflecting on a similar line, she added, “So she’s already sort of leaning into the court. So if you’re leaning into the court, you’re going to fall into the court, which she does, and then she was going to always hit down on the ball. And you have to hit up. You have to hit up and you have to stay up and you have to hit, and I call it 7 p.m. on a ball, right? If you think about a ball being a clock. She hits at like 1 p.m. She needs to hit at 7 p.m. right on the under the ball to get the kick serve.”

According to the 54-year-old Aussie legend who won four Grand Slam titles in her doubles career, Coco Gauff needs to have a better kick serve, and at the moment, after seeing Gauff play, she feels that her grip is also messed up a bit. She feels it’s way too far around. 

However, Stubbs isn’t the only one who has spoken up on this issue time and again. Several other tennis bigwigs, including Serena Williams’ childhood coach, Rick Macci, have shared her insights on the same on various occasions. But what does Gauff have to say about her constant trouble?

Coco Gauff makes a bold admission about her constant issue in recent times

Previously, while talking about Coco Gauff’s serving woes, Rick Macci claimed her serve is “biomechanically disconnected“, but having said that, he also mentioned that her second serve could easily be fixed with the right tweaks. Recently, after witnessing Gauff’s horrible numbers against Collins at the Canadian Open, he shared a tweet saying, “With every athlete, you have to play the WHAT IF CARD. If Coco had an ATP forehand with style, she would go the extra mile… With her second serve, this can be rewired easily right from the ground and in 1 hour be a weapon and fundamentally sound.“

According to tennis journalist Catherine Whitaker’s statement during The Tennis Podcast, if Coco Gauff is not breaking serve, she doesn’t stand a chance of winning a tennis match. Even the BBC commentator, David Law, highlighted her numbers (23 double faults) against Collins and said that he had never seen a player win a three-set match despite hitting so many double faults. “I was struck by just how lost… she looked confused. She looked about why it’s going wrong,” Law added. 

Just when everyone was wondering if she could ever fix this problem, Coco Gauff came up with a statement on this on August 1. She stated, “I mean, obviously, I am like so disappointed in myself when it comes to that part of the game, just because I didn’t play DC to work on that and make changes to that, and doing well in practice and serving really well in practice. So, I just would like for it to transfer to the match.” 

Having said that, she also admitted that she knows she won’t ever be double-fault free, but all she now aims for is to get that number to 2 per set or 3 per set. She believes this little change can make a big difference in making the matches a lot easier for her. Being a tough critic of herself, Gauff strongly believes that this thing will get better with time, and she’s now ready to put in the effort yet again to solve this problem ahead of the US Open.