Despite having a winning run at the Italian Open, it seems Coco Gauff’s “double trouble” is far from over! She has already committed around 151 double faults this season. Although she kept it pretty tidy in her previous three matches in Rome, Gauff committed 16 double faults in her previous match against Qinwen Zheng. Overall, she has now committed 35 double faults in five of her matches in this tournament. So, despite slowly getting back to her best form, her woes surrounding the high number of double faults keep on plaguing the 21-year-old. Veteran tennis coach, Rick Macci, best known for his stint with the Williams sisters, had previously said her serve was “biomechanically disconnected,” but he believes Gauff’s “second serve can be fixed in less than 1 hour.” Several experts have come up with different suggestions, but this now seems to be an unending problem for the world’s number 3. How did Macci react after seeing her numbers from the previous match?

Rick Macci has time and again spoken about how “Tweaking/Speaking will not solve the double fault leaking” for Coco Gaff. In fact, he also believes that Gauff has all the inner qualities to be “number One“, but some of these things provide a big hindrance towards her summit. If we take a look at her performance in the previous match, although she defeated the world number 8, Qinwen Zheng, 7-6(3),4-6,7-6(4), her stats were a bit too concerning for the renowned tennis coach.

In one of his tweets, Macci hailed her success in this match but also highlighted the major flaw in her game, saying, “Coco has the heart of a lion. She actually has 2 hearts 2 lungs 2 backbones a 2 handed backhand but 2 many double faults. This shows you how strong mentally this young warrior is, and once the second serve is Stable, number one is on the Table. @CocoGauff.” Then shortly after that, he came up with yet another tweet saying, “Coco gifted 16 double faults and still got the W. At the end of the Day, a winner finds a Way. @CocoGauff.“

Was it a lucky escape or a sheer display of resilience for the American? Well, according to Macci, Coco Gauff is a “fighter“. Was it the first, we saw him praising the youngster? In fact, in a viral video clip on IG, he once hailed her, saying, “the Olympic sprinter with a racket in her hand.” He believes her backbone is just as good as her backhand.

Earlier this season, when Coco Gauff was struggling a bit with her form, it was Macci who claimed that she would be “fine,” by saying, “You never lose talent/athletic ability.“ He insisted that tennis is a journey of ups and downs and Gauff has a bright future up ahead. Winning “multiple Grand Slams” is also a big possibility for her. How can Gauff unleash this vast potential? “If second serve becomes an asset and forehand becomes her Best shot,” Gauff will surely reach her fullest potential, according to Macci. Other than her second serve, Gauff’s forehand has also been the talk of the town for quite a while. Has there been any improvement on that, though?

American tennis legend comes up with a very interesting observation in Coco Gauff’s game

In 2024, during the French Open, Serena Williams’ ex-coach Patrick Mouratoglou claimed, “I would have liked not to tell you about Cori Gauff’s forehand, but there is a real technical problem.” However, this year, after seeing her performances at the Italian Open, Andy Roddick stated, “It used to be where she would play a defensive forehand or almost commit before the match, where you are seeing the high looping ones or make hay and flatten it out Jim Courier style. Now it feels like the Andy Murray mold, where she is opening up the shoulders and going to the forehand, then she is opening up the shoulders and going up the line. But she is setting the table.”

Roddick further claimed, “She is establishing that one to the right side of her opponent’s body early and then that opens up the other options. Also, once she opens up that one down the line, that traffic is going back to her backhand. And I feel like she is in total control of her game, maybe for the first time since she won the US Open.” 

Despite a few hiccups, Gauff has now managed to make it to the finals in Rome. With her win against Zheng in that 3-hour and 32-minute battle, Coco Gauff has now become the youngest player to reach both Madrid and Rome finals since the inception of the Spanish tournament in 2009. She is now also the first American in nine years to reach the finals at the Italian Open. Can Coco Gauff become the first American to win the title since Serena Williams in 2016?

Well, after her win in the SF, she looked quite pleased with her performance. “Overall I’m just happy. Wasn’t my best level at all, to be honest. Just happy to get through it and through to another final.” Coco Gauff has two WTA 1000 titles beside her name and she’s now the third youngest player to reach four WTA 1000 finals since 2009. Can she create another historic moment in her career by winning the final against the home favorite Jasmine Paolini? Share your thoughts in the comment box.