Coco Gauff entered her first tournament with biomechanics coach Gavin MacMillan in her corner.
Throughout her career, the world number three has struggled with her serve, which produces an alarming number of double faults.
The two-time Grand Slam champion has served over 300 double faults in 2025, more than any other player on the WTA Tour.
Gauff split with Matt Daly and hired MacMillan to help her iron out the issues with arguably the most important shot in tennis.
Photo by Robert Prange/Getty ImagesCoco Gauff’s team said she should be ‘proud’ of how she played in the first round of the US Open
Coco Gauff played Ajla Tomljanovic in her first match of the 2025 US Open.
The American took the lead by claiming the opening set, and she led the second set 4-2 and looked set to cruise to victory.
But Tomljanovic broke back and proceeded to win the set 7-5, and the third set was a titanic battle for victory. Gauff led 5-3 but was thwarted by the Australian once again, and the set was level at 5-5.
But the 21-year-old fed off the energy from the electric home crowd to break back and hold serve, as Gauff outlasted Tomljanovic 6-4, 6-7(2), 7-5.
Post-match the 2023 US Open winner admitted being unhappy with her performance, but she told ESPN that her team have encouraged her to be more positive about how she played.
“I think when I won in 2023 at the US Open I felt ‘okay I did enough for the year’ and also it’s easy to do that with the US Open because there are no slams after it,” Gauff explained.
“I told myself the next time I win a Slam I want to push myself to win another one in that year. I am not going to put the pressure on this. But I think to achieve the level of greatness that I want to achieve you can’t be too satisfied.
“I have to find the fine line of being proud but not satisfied and I think I am one of those people that sometimes is not as proud of myself as I should be.
“Today I was very disappointed with my match but my team told me I should be more proud. But I think it’s just trying to find that balance between not being satisfied but also not undermining your achievements.”
She added: “I think for me today I was thinking about that after my match, the year I won in 2023 I had a similar first round match so I am just trying to remind myself that the first round match is not indicative of the way the tournament is going to go.”
Photo by CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty ImagesTennis pundits wonder if Coco Gauff is ‘mentally exhausted’ at the US Open
Gauff is through to the second round of the US Open but it was a win she had to work extremely hard for.
There is plenty of pressure and expectation on her shoulders, being the American number one and arguably the biggest star in the women’s game.
Gauff had plenty of sponsorship commitments leading up to the start of the tournament and a night match inside Arthur Ashe stadium always draws plenty of attention.
But after watching her performance and body language, members of Tennis Podcast think Gauff has taken on plenty, and they wonder how long she can keep playing long and physical matches in the tournament.
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Co-host David Law said: “I just think her performances and her success and her career, she puts so much into it and she’s at one of the biggest of the biggest tournaments in the world for her, maybe even the biggest.
“Everybody’s looking at her and she’s come out here and she is tinkering in this manner with her game, and she obviously just hates the feeling, that’s what it feels like when you listen to her.”
Law’s co-host Matt Roberts added: “I was struck by what you said about her feeling exhausted mentally, because I had this feeling throughout this whole match, I can’t believe this is only round one.
“But it already feels like she has done so much work both in the match and the buildup to the event. In terms of where this leaves Coco Gauff I don’t know how any more times she can do that.”