Coco Gauff and Gavin MacMillan’s decision to focus on fixing her forehand before her serve has been questioned by former WTA Tour star Alexandra Stevenson.
World No 3 Gauff is one of the most accomplished players of her generation, with the 21-year-old winning her second Grand Slam singles title at the French Open back in June.
The American was previously a champion at the US Open back in 2023 and is a three-time champion at WTA 1000 events, alongside triumphing at the 2024 WTA Finals in Riyadh.
However, despite a consistent level of success in recent years, Gauff has also repeatedly struggled with key elements in her game, with her serve and forehand proving particularly troublesome at times.
Struggles with her grip on both serve and forehand strokes prompted her decision to hire Matt Daly in September 2024, and their partnership was initially successful.
However, a recurrence of her issues saw her split with Daly just days before the US Open and hire another grip specialist, MacMillan, who previously worked with Aryna Sabalenka.
Gauff would win the Wuhan Open early into her partnership with MacMillan, but was beaten in the fourth round of the US Open, and suffered a round-robin exit at the WTA Finals this November.
MacMillan’s priority with Gauff appears to have been solving her issues on the forehand wing.
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However, speaking on the Inside-In Tennis Podcast, former Wimbledon semi-finalist Stevenson questioned whether this was the right approach.
Speaking about Gauff’s work on her serve, Stevenson claimed that this should have taken place before any work on the 21-year-old’s groundstrokes.
She said: “It’s been a long time coming, that’s kind of been the number one thing I’ve seen.
“I don’t understand why, she [Gauff] should be able to fix it, she’s such a good athlete, but technically there’s issues within the motion and hopefully this guy [MacMillan] is fixing it.
“I haven’t seen her practices, but technically there’s like three things that she should be able to fix right away. In practice, that doesn’t mean under pressure — the serve and forehand go together, so the forehand was first, but it should have been the serve fixed first, I think.
“I think they should have attacked the serve and then gone off the forehand, because when you don’t have a serve, and you lose it, you lose your forehand, that’s just across the board in tennis.
“So they did it backwards, but they’re working on it, and she’s still beating girls, because on the women’s tour now the serve is an issue.”
Stevenson elaborated further by then claiming that “everybody” on the WTA Tour could improve their serve, with Gauff far from the only player struggling.
“Everybody’s serve could get better on the women’s side, that’s why [Elena] Rybakina came out of nowhere and won the year-end [WTA] Finals against the top eight, right, basically her serve.
“It’s a fundamental thing that I’ve found in coaching, the serve gets neglected on the women’s side, and that really bothers me, because it should be the number one thing worked on.
“As you see the men, the men don’t have meltdowns.”
Despite struggles at points, Gauff finished at world No 3 in the WTA Rankings for the third consecutive season, with further Grand Slam and WTA 1000 success contributing towards her WTA Ranking.
The American will start her 2026 season representing America in the United Cup, the mixed team event held across Sydney and Perth.
The US enters the tournament as the reigning champions, with Gauff winning all of her singles matches in the 2025 edition of the event.
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