Red-hot Coco Gauff gives insight into how her new coaches have helped her to improve

May 2024 · 4 minute read
A happy Coco Gauff

Coco Gauff is currently one of the hottest players on the WTA Tour and while she feels no drastic changes have taken place after she added Brad Gilbert and Pere Riba to her set-up, she admits they have changed her perspective on a lot of things.

The American added Riba to her team ahead of Wimbledon and after a disappointing first-round exit from the grass-court Grand Slam, she announced ahead of the North American hard-court season that Gilbert would also join.

Gauff then kicked off her hard-court swing by winning the WTA 500 Citi DC Open. She followed it up with a run to the quarter-final of the Canadian Open before winning the biggest title of her career at the Cincinnati Open over the weekend.

The teenager is 11-1 since Wimbledon and many pundits believe her new-look coaching team must have made major tweaks, but Gauff says it has been minor changes that have done the trick.

“It has just been the execution and the belief, and the things in practice, down the foot work and how I approach to the ball,” she told WTA Insider.

“I used to think that when they hit really fast at me I used to just squat and try bang it back, but I realise that is not the most consistent way to play. It’s just that mentality change… so it has just been small changes and how they have changed my perspective on that has helped.

“But obviously nothing has changed drastically like people think. I didn’t change anything, it’s just those small adjustments.

“Going into the off-season, for sure I want to improve in little things, these last couple of weeks has just been about minor adjustments, but that makes me really excited when I have a break in the season to really improve.”

READ MORE: Coco Gauff’s new coach Brad Gilbert lauded as a ‘genius’ by former world No 1

Gauff’s Cincy title included wins over world No 1 Iga Swiatek in the semi-final – which was her first victory over the four-time Grand Slam winner in eight attempts – and Roland Garros runner-up Karolina Muchova in the final.

So how much of her recent improvement is down to coaching? And how much of any player’s performance is down to coaching?

Gilbert of cause came with a wealth of experience as he coached Grand Slam winners Andre Agassi and Andy Roddick to Grand Slam titles while 35-year-old Pere is still in the early days of his coaching career.

“Everybody says the player does more than the coach. I would say it’s like 60-40, 70-30 [in terms of the split of player-coach in put], I think my team would say the same, but I think definitely the coaching helps,” Gauff said.

“Just having a new perspective these last couple of weeks helped me a lot mentally in the way I see the game. I think just having two really different generations coaching me – Pere only stopped playing three or four years ago and Brad won this tournament in ’89 so it’s a completely different spectrum. It’s cool to see the different dynamic

“At first I was worried because I didn’t know Brad really that well, nor Pere. Some people do have ego issues and don’t want to work with another person and blah, blah, blah, but they have made this as smooth as possible and that was one of the things I was scared of.

“I knew I needed a new coach and I knew I needed to bring in someone with experience, but it is not always as easy. People still have to be able to work together and I think that dynamic has helped me a lot.

“I think in my case I would say it has been at least 60 per cent me and 40 per cent them because it has only been a short amount of time and the results have happened.

“In general most coaches would say it’s more the player than the coach.”

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