Coco Gauff is in the first semifinal of the clay swing in 2024. She played and won a fantastic match against Qinwen Zheng in the Italian Open quarterfinal, achieving her first top-10 victory of the year. While basking in glory, Gauff had to pull out a hilarious but tactical move at the last point. She found it humorous, and rather surprisingly, took to social media to troll herself for it. 

After many troubles this year, Gauff finally found her rhythm as she defeated the world number 7 in straight sets, 7-6, 6-1. The American sensation played a fantastic match but almost missed the match point, but Gauff’s quick thinking and agility saved the day. As Zheng served to push her out of the court, Gauff ran to the middle to recover but almost got hit by Zheng’s return. She had to jump for the ball to land out, and for her to win the match. She shared the video of the moment on her Instagram story with the caption, “Had to move my 🍑 out of the way 🤣.”

The official WTA page also shared a video of the interaction on their ‘X’ page with the caption, “If you can dodge a tennis ball, you’re into the semifinals 😂 @CocoGauffslides her way into the semifinals after defeating Zheng 7-6(4), 6-1. She will face Swiatek for a spot in the final.”

Despite the ball almost hitting her and falling after the jump, Gauff had a big smile on her face. The smile likely came from relief as she managed to show a great result on clay. Her improvement was born out of her admiration for her idol, and she chose to implement one of her strategies when training.

Coco Gauff follows the path of her idol and spends a ‘lot of time returning’ to improve her game

Gauff defeated Paula Badosa in the round of 16, 5-7, 6-4, 6-1. While there are still some flaws in her game, she has significantly improved her return on serves, converting 50% of receiving points versus Badosa. In the post-match press conference, she discussed how she was inspired by Serena Williams to improve her own returns. “One thing I learned from Serena, she would spend probably like an hour sometimes literally just hitting returns.”

When discussing her own process, she said, “I think for me, it was just realizing that not everything needs to be a return winner. Also I did shorten my swings on the returns. I think just reps, honestly. That helps a lot, too.”

The American player has shown a willingness to improve, and she can finally enjoy the fruits of her labor. With great victories in hand, can she beat the world number 1, Iga Swiatek, in the semifinal?