Coco Gauff’s 1st match with a new serve coach at the US Open is a struggle but also a win
By Howard Fendrich
The first match of Coco Gauff since you enlist someone to help with his Tremblant service took a difficult start at US Open on Tuesday evening. She doubled in the very first match – and a total of 10 times. She was also broken in this game – and a total of six times.
The only figures that really counted at the end, of course, were those on the dashboard of the Arthur Ashe stadium, and those showed that GAUFF n ° 3 held a 6-4, 6-7 (2), 7-5 victory on Ajla Tomljanovic to reach the second round at Flushing Meadows.
“It was not the best,” said Gauff, “but I’m happy to go.”
Nothing came easily. Gauff led twice by a break in the second set but could not end things. It increased by 5-3 in the third and served for the victory at 5-4, but to double twice in a row and missed a pair of forehands to do it 5.
It could have been too much to take. Instead, Gauff stabilized, broke immediately, then was able to serve it for its second chance to do so, almost three hours full after the start of the competition.
“I was so likely.
Gauff, who won the first of his two Grand Slam titles at US Open 2023 in adolescence, added Gavin Macmillan to his team of coaches shortly before the start of this tournament. Macmillan is an expert in biomechanics who helped the current n ° 1, Aryna Sabalenka, her service a few years ago, and he was in the first row of the guest box of Gauff, sitting just in front of his mother.
After defeating Tomljanovic, Gauff called his training with Macmillan “really hard” and “mentally exhausting”.
“I’m trying to improve myself in every game,” she said.
The problem for Gauff, in a word, was a propensity to accumulate double faults. Its 320 between the United States Open were the most important in the female tour this season – and more than 100 more than anyone. It included 23 in a match earlier this month, then 14 next time.
Tuesday, when she had treated with the current work of a modified service request, Gauff started with much slower offers than she is able to strike. As the match progressed and the tension increased, Florida’s 21 -year -old woman returned to her usual pace, going on an average of only 88 MPH on the first function of the first set, to 97 MPH in second and 101 in the third, when Ashe’s retractable roof was closed. It increased one to 117 MPH and even produced a second service ACE.
This won this one against the 79th classified Tomljanovic, an Australian best known for having beaten Serena Williams at the US Open of 2022 during the last match of the major champion of his career, was the exemplary judicial coverage of Gauff and the terrible setback. In an appropriate way, a match point converted into backwards at the bottom of the line, and Gauff agitated his arms above his head to go up the crowd.
Even if Tomljanovic swung his big forehand, it was Gauff who drew the best party from their long exchanges from the basic line.
She also behaved well when she moved forward, winning 12 of the 15 points that she finished in the net, including one with a jump, a jump, a volle winner
It was Gauff’s first game during a slam since he tripped at a first round out in Wimbledon in July, a setback that followed his championship at the French Open in June.
While Gauff advances to Flushing Meadows, there is a chance that she can exceed Sabalenka and n ° 2 IGA Swiatek in the ranking and go to n ° 1 for the first time.
