"Nothing came easily. Gauff twice led by a break in the second set but couldn't end things. She went up 5-3 in the third and served for the victory at 5-4, but double-faulted twice in a row and missed a pair of forehands to make it 5-all. That could have been too much to take. Instead, Gauff steadied herself, broke right back, then was able to serve it out on her second chance to do so, nearly three full hours after the contest began."
"Gauff, who won the first of her two Grand Slam titles at the 2023 U.S. Open as a teenager, added Gavin MacMillan to her coaching team shortly before the start of this tournament. MacMillan is a biomechanics expert who helped current No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka retool her serve a few years ago, and he was in the first row of Gauff's guest box, seated right in front of her mother."
Coco Gauff survived a three-hour U.S. Open opener against Ajla Tomljanovic, winning 6-4, 6-7 (2), 7-5 despite major serving issues. She double-faulted 10 times and was broken six times, including a double-fault in the first game. Gauff recently added biomechanics expert Gavin MacMillan to her coaching team to rework her serve and called practices with him "really tough" and "mentally exhausting." She twice failed to close out the match but recovered after double-faulting while serving for victory, broke back, and served out the win on her second chance.
Read at AP News
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]