Ex-Wimbledon semi-finalist identifies the mistake Coco Gauff made recently

Alexandra Stevenson thinks Coco Gauff and her biomechanics coach Gavin MacMillan have ‘done it backwards’, while the former Wimbledon semi-finalist believes the 21-year-old should have focused on improving her serve first and forehand second.

Although Gauff managed to get her serve and forehand problems under control during the clay swing (she reached back-to-back finals in Madrid and Rome before winning the French Open), her problems resurfaced during the grass-court season. After a disappointing 0-2 on grass and loss in the first round of Wimbledon, the world number 3 continued to struggle at the start of the North American hard-court swing and did not fare particularly well in Montreal and Cincinnati.

That was enough for Gauff to finally pull the trigger and do what many had expected her to do for a while: she hired a biomechanics coach to help her recover her technique and movement. If you recall, MacMillan famously helped Aryna Sabalenka overcome her serving woes in 2022 before the Belarusian won four Grand Slams and reached the world No. 1 ranking.

Stevenson, the former world number 18, was happy with Gauff’s decision to hire MacMillan but suggested they had not got their priorities right.

Stevenson: They should have attacked the serve first and then focused on solving the forehand

“I haven’t seen her training, but technically there are three things she should be able to fix straight away. In practice, that doesn’t mean pressure – the serve and the forehand go together, so the forehand was first, but it should have been the serve to fix first, I think,” the 1999 Wimbledon semi-finalist said on the Inside-In podcast.

“I think they should have attacked the serve and then gone off the forehand, because if you don’t have a serve and you lose it, you lose your forehand, that’s the case everywhere in tennis. So they did it backwards, but they’re working on it, and they’re still beating girls, because on the women’s tour, the serve is an issue now.”

Gauff showed some signs of improvement on her serve shortly after hiring MacMillan. After adding MacMillan, the 21-year-old stated several times that she was looking at the bigger picture and focusing on improvement, rather than getting results right away.