Why is Coco Gauff struggling? Looking into American's form woes and what went wrong after bright start to 2025
Coco Gauff started 2025 with five wins in a row, leading the US to the United Cup trophy. Since then, however, the American has failed to play on the same level, getting knocked out from the Australian Open quarter-final and scoring back-to-back losses in Doha and Dubai. While the Middle Eastern stretch was never her favorite of the year, which is reflected in her past results there, the American's form drop does warrant an examination.
Star tennis players like Gauff don't really drop in form this drastically often, so in that sense, it was a rather alarming development. She finished last year on a high note, winning the WTA Finals in Riyadh, which was for many her return to the forefront of tennis. She first did it when she won the US Open in 2023 but failed to really make an impact in 2024 in the first half.
The impact came later on with a strong finish to the year, including the WTA Finals, where she won four of the five matches she played at the event. The expectations after that one were that she would continue like that in 2025. Those expectations were tempered though, because she hasn't really gone on a heater like that before, so until she does, people were unsure if she's able to.
Her performances at the United Cup certainly backed up her WTA Finals form, as she won all five matches she played, including over her arch nemesis Iga Swiatek, against whom she has historically struggled. She was simply playing fantastic tennis. Expectations rose due to that and it looked okay at the Australian Open. She looked in control until the match with Paula Badosa.
That quarter-final was a pretty bad performance by Gauff, who was beaten in two sets. She then took a break going back home to the US, returning about 20 days later in the Middle East. The first event was Doha, where she was stunned in the first match by Marta Kostyuk 6-2, 7-5. Then she went to Dubai, where she was stunned by McCartney Kessler 6-4, 7-5.
Neither of these performances was good and while playing well in the Middle East isn't that common for Gauff, this was another low. So what happened? Is it form or is it something else? It's a combination of factors, some of which are best illustrated through some stats.
Comparing Coco Gauff's stats to determine what is going wrong
Coco Gauff has been playing more aggressive tennis for a while now as her natural defensive propensity was replaced by a deliberate intent to play more attacking tennis. It's simply the style that works best in this era of tennis and if Gauff wants to be where she hopes to be, she needs to play that way.
If we look at her match against Swiatek at the United Cup which she won, that aggressiveness paid off. She won the majority of points behind her first serve at 74% and also attacked Swiatek's weaker second serve well, winning 53% of those points. Compare that to her loss against Paula Badosa where she won 69% of her first serve.
It's pretty good so the serve wasn’t the issue, her attacking display was though. Gauff won only 37% on Badosa's second serve which was not really good enough considering how weak anyone's second serve can be. She also totaled 41 unforced errors meaning that she tried to be aggressive but was missing the ball far too many times.
That's nothing new for Gauff who has had issues with that in the past as she was starting out to be more aggressive. It's not something that is natural for her yet, but with more time she will certainly get there. The stats paint an ever clearer picture during the Middle East stretch. In Doha, she won 59% of her first serve points. That's a significant drop compared to both Melbourne and especially Sydney. Gauff also won only 36% on the opponent's second serve.
It wasn’t for a lack of trying because she tried, she just wasn’t hitting her shots. Dubai was comparable stat-wise. She won 71% on her first serve and 37% on her second serve so she kind of righted the ship percentage-wise but she didn't limit the unforced errors. She had way too many, much more than her opponent so in essence it's a combination of things that caused this drop.
She's not hitting the ball as well as she did which is normal as she's still trying to find her way of playing aggressive tennis. Gauff likely suffered a confidence drop because of that which caused her to miss even more and it's just about more practice and a bit of a break so we should expect to see a very good Gauff at the Indian Wells Masters. Overall not a massive issue though something to note as she continues to go through growing pains while transforming how she plays tennis.