With tears in her eyes, Coco Gauff expressed her disappointment, saying, “I don’t like losing,” after facing a straight set defeat to Dayana Yastremska in the first round of the 2025 Wimbledon. Her fans expected her to make a strong comeback on the North American hard-court swing, but the 21-year-old withdrew her name from the Citi Open to put more focus on her recovery and preparations for the upcoming events. Currently, she’s back in action, and guess what? Gauff has already secured a winning start to her campaign at the Canadian Open, and she’ll be facing Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova in the next round (R32).

Despite her three-set victory against Danielle Collins in her first match, Coco Gauff’s 23 double faults and 74 unforced errors in that 2 hours and 55 minutes duel have now become the talk of the town. It was a narrow escape from the world number 2. What did she say after the match, though? During the post-match interview, Gauff said, “I was practicing well and I don’t think I transferred it today, but hopefully I got my bad match of the tournament out of the way.” She even described it as a “frustrating match” and said that if she could cut the errors in half, it would have been a quicker match for her.

However, that match is a past thing now, and she now needs to put her focus on her next opponent. The 28-year-old Russian tennis star, Veronika Kudermetova, is one of the most underrated players on the Tour. She turned pro in 2011 and has won two titles in her singles career. She has a career-high ranking of world number 9, achieved on 24 October 2022, and a best doubles ranking of number 2, which she achieved on 6 June 2022. She has won 9 titles in her doubles career, and that includes the 2025 Wimbledon doubles title as well.

Born to Eduard Kudermetov, a Russian national ice hockey champion, Veronika Kudermetova started playing tennis at the age of 8. Interestingly, her younger sister, Polina Kudermetova, is also a tennis player. Who are her tennis idols, though? In 2021, during an interview, Kudermetova named the G.O.A.T.s in the tennis world. “Serena Williams and Roger Federer, but I also liked Justine Henin a lot,” she said. But having said that, she revealed that Roger Federer is her favorite among the ‘Big 3’, and she has always looked up to Maria Sharapova while growing up.

Coco Gauff’s R32 opponent at the Canadian Open is currently ranked 42nd in the world and has a win-loss record of 26-18. Her best record in the singles major events has been reaching the QF of the French Open in 2022. She’ll be keen to get some wins under her belt before the US Open. But other than her tennis, Kudermetova recently made the headlines with a very interesting revelation about a fellow tennis player.

During a recent appearance on Elena Vesnina’s podcast, the tennis star revealed that the Danish pro, Holger Rune, had tried to slide into her DMs on Instagram. Rune recently texted me. I told him, ‘Boy, I’m probably too old for you. If you looked at my Instagram, you’d see I have a husband,“ she said. 

So, other than her impressive performance in this tournament, where she defeated the likes of Cristina Bucsa and Olga Danilovic in the previous two rounds, Veronika Kudermetova has managed to put herself as a topic of discussion in the tennis world with this interesting revelation. But on the other side, Coco Gauff’s ‘ugly wins’ have yet again become a hot topic!

Tennis bigwigs comment on Coco Gauff’s serving woes.

Coco Gauff has so far played 41 matches this season, and guess what? She has already committed 250 double faults this season! What’s more interesting is that Coco Gauff is now placed fifth in the highest tally of double faults ever recorded in a WTA Tour-level match. Previously, her record was committing 21 double faults in a single match. She did that twice! First against Aryna Sabalenka at the 2024 Wuhan Open, and then the next one came against Moyuka Uchijima at the 2025 Indian Wells.

Just like Gauff, even Sabalenka used to struggle a lot with these double faults, but in October last year, during an interview, the Belarusian revealed that she’d been leaving no stones unturned to transform her serve. She’s now not even in the top five on the list of double faults this year. Perhaps Coco Gauff needs to learn a few lessons from Sabalenka now!

Tennis experts Rennae Stubbs and Rick Macci have often spoken about Coco Gauff’s growing concerns with her serves in the past, and recently, they have yet again opened up on the same topic. Stubbs said, “I wish Coco would just think about getting under the ball more on her 2nd serve. She has to accelerate up, not down…so think 7 pm on the ball, not noon…it’s hard to explain, but if u think of the ball as a clock, it helps.” However, despite pointing out her flaws, she praised Gauff for her never-give-up attitude in tough situations.

Serena Williams’ childhood coach, Rick Macci, also tweeted, “Coco and the second serve. Talked about this for three years, and everybody has given their advice, but here we are, and double-faulting more than almost twice. Everything has been said from grip to toss to head to toe, but still nothing to show. This is a muscle memory issue, and now the soft tissue. The team has to understand the cause, not the effect, to finally correct it. @CocoGauff.“

After her match against Collins, Coco Gauff heaped praise on her 31-year-old opponent and also shared her takeaways from that match. According to her, the biggest takeaway was to break Collins as many times as she did in that match, especially considering how great a ball striker she is. 

Nonetheless, a win is a win, and she’ll be next taking on someone who has a 1-2 record against her. Can Coco Gauff extend her lead against Veronika Kudermetova?