The 22-year-old American is a defensive baseliner who clings to the back of the court to build points. Mumbai: On match point, Coco Gauff tried something different. Now, when she was a point away from a spot in the last eight of a Grand Slam, she decided to serve-and-volley for the first time in the match.
“I don’t know if it shows how confident I am, or just the ideas in my head that pop up on match point. Last season, she struggled for consistency on her serve and the forehand had become a clear chink in the armour. “It’s just knowing that in practice I’ve been executing it well, and I’ve started to execute it really well in matches. Honestly, I feel like when you have a weakness, and over the years everybody just starts hitting to it, you have no choice but getting better. So, I welcome it. I feel like every match I’m hitting more forehands than backhands, so it’s getting better.”
Gauff is a different player from last year, despite the fact that she had won the French Open in 2025—her second Grand Slam title.
“I was thinking when I hit the serve that I’m either going to love this or regret this,” she said in the post-match press conference. “Just trying to have better footwork on that shot has made a difference,” she explained.
It was probably one of those drastic ideas that comes up only when a player is hitting the ball sweetly, moving around the court with ease, pulling off moves she tends not to use, and is playing with a great deal of confidence. “I’m constantly putting myself in quarter-finals, so the moment doesn’t seem as big anymore. Like most players though, she tends to take it one match at a time. And the match against Jovic started with Gauff losing serve in the very first game.
It all showed on Monday night at the Arthur Ashe Stadium when fourth seed Gauff beat budding star and compatriot Iva Jovic 6-1, 6-4 to reach the quarter-final of the US Open. The straight-set result came in a match that lasted an hour and 33 minutes, but it was a statement win for the 2023 champion.
And this for a player who, in the fourth round in New York last year, told her player box that “nothing’s working” as she slumped to a straight sets defeat against Naomi Osaka. “A quarter-final for me, I feel like I’m at the point where I’m used to being in this position,” she said.
