Coco Gauff suffered a really bad loss at the 2024 Qatar Open, but tennis pundits are not really worried because of it since it's all part of the process.
Gauff is a tennis player, and no matter how great a tennis player is, they are still susceptible to losses, even if they are bad losses. That's just the nature of the sport, which is different from the majority of sports, as players often lose almost every week.
Losing to Katerina Siniakova is not the worst thing in the world, but how she lost that match was very shocking. The first set was below her level, but that was to be expected after some time away from the courts, and the Czech player used that and outplayed her comfortably.
The second set saw Gauff up 4-0 before she lost six games in a row to lose the match. It was a shocking loss because it's a matchup she had no problems with in the past, but losing the 4-0 lead was probably the most surprising part.
She won almost all the other matches against the Czech comfortably, so losing was quite strange. She played nervously, and it was by far her weakest match in a very long time.
Talking about it on the Tennis Channel, former WTA player Coco Vandeweghe didn't sound the alarm bells. She thinks it's premature to really hit the panic button because it was just one bad match in between months of really solid play.
"It's going to be really important for her to just manage the expectations going forward into the rest of the year. It's a long year; it's a marathon, not a sprint, so I definitely agree that there is no reason to hit the panic button."
The loss was bad, according to Vandeweghe, because you never want to crash out early in a WTA 1000 event, but she's still a young player, and these matches will simply happen.
"Yes, you don't want to go out early, especially at the 1000 events. There are few and far between, and you really want to excel at those 1000s, but we have to manage the expectations of Coco Gauff."
"She's a grand slam champion but still very young in her career, and she needs to beat these players with fruition and not go down to these players too much."
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