Coco Gauff is a wonderful tennis player, but she's also young and has plenty to learn, and former WTA player and legend Chris Evert pointed out areas for improvement.
Evert will be in New York for the 2024 US Open in her standard role as a media member. Ahead of the event, she participated in a press conference hosted by ESPN. The former player touched upon many topics, including Gauff, who is the defending champion.
The American won her maiden Grand Slam trophy at last year's US Open, but she's not heading into this year's event with much excitement. She has been playing badly for a few weeks now, and her confidence heading into the tournament is certainly far from what it was last year.
Evert thinks that Gauff still has to learn lots of things before she can take over and dominate. Being compared with Serena Williams from a very young age certainly had an impact on Gauff, but she has her own path to greatness. That includes learning more and becoming better at everything.
"The thing about the tears, I think, as John said, you just don’t know, you don’t consciously know the expectations that creep into your cells in your body."
"Everybody, from day one, has thought about Coco she’s the next Serena Williams, she’s going to be the next one that dominates. That stays with you for a long time."
She's still a player who gets overwhelmed with emotion at times. Recently, she had a moment when she shouted at her box and her coach, Brad Gilbert, expecting a solution from him, and Evert would like her to start coming up with her own game plan.
"I also think when she got really upset and emotional, I think it was during Wimbledon, or was it during the French she was looking up at the box?"
"Wimbledon, yeah. I think she’s got to start to figure out her own game plan. I think she’s got to start to trust her instincts when she’s playing a match and not always rely on patterns and coaches and people telling her what to do."
Gauff has been playing tennis long enough that she is ready to trust her instincts during play, but she's still a bit hesitant about that. She did it last year in the US Open final, and look what happened—she won it.
"I just think she’s at an age now where she’s got to play with a little more feel and a little more instinct and a little more belief in herself, get away from the patterns. She was frustrated at them, like she was blaming them, but really tennis is inside you."
"I think John and I didn’t have the coaching that they have now. I think we figured it out ourselves and played instinctive tennis. I think she’s got to do more of that."
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