Coco Gauff’s 2025 has been a hell of a year. The young American tennis player is finding her best shape and her hard work is paying back in so many ways. Not only her game has developed, she has conquered matches, lifting her maiden French Open title to add a second Grand Slam to her trophy case and defending her title at the WTA 1000 in Beijing.
Turning the page to a year in which she achieved all this gold will not be easy, but she is looking to 2026 with her eyes on fire. Yet, as the tennis world looks toward 2026, a haunting statistic lingers over her success: her 431 double faults.
It is a big number for a professional her size. Even former players have addressed it as a piece she should focus on for next year, like Former Wimbledon semi-finalist Alexandra Stevenson. She thinks that she has some things she should be able to correct immediately.
Another approach to coaching
While talking in a recent episode of the Inside-In podcast, Stevenson was asked about Gauff and her coaching situation, and the former player was clear on her stance:
Technically, there are things she should be able to correct immediately. The serve and forehand go hand in hand… but I think the serve should have been corrected first
This hit to biomechanics expert Gavin MacMillan underlined her worry about how Gauff is dealing with her delivery, leading to the poor numbers of double faults. She emphasized that the serve had to be corrected first and now they to fix something they did backwards:
When you don’t have a serve and you lose it, you lose your forehand. That’s just across the board in tennis. So they did it backwards
A thing to sort out for 2026
The data backs the urgency of Stevenson’s thought. Gauff finished the 2025 season as the queen of double faults, with more than 430 on her records. While even her incredible athleticism and world-class return game winning nearly 49% of return points, allowed her to keep winning Stevenson warns that relying on it could be unsustainable in the long term.
Gavin MacMillan addressed the technical roadmap in an interview with the Tennis Channel, clarifying that the ultimate objective is not just to stop the errors, but to build a weapon.
The goal for her, first and foremost, is to establish an effective kick serve
If Gauff can fill this gap between her elite athleticism and her serve issues, the gap between her and the World No. 1 spot may finally complete.
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