Esteemed tennis coach Rick Macci has provided a detailed breakdown of the technical changes that he believes could solve Coco Gauff’s second serve issues.
Gauff‘s serve has become a regular talking point as she has battled difficulties with double faults in various spells over the last few years.
The American star hit 430 double faults in her 71 matches in 2024 — the highest tally WTA Tour.
The 21-year-old also leads the tour for double faults this season, having committed 250 in her 41 matches to date, which is 57 more than second-placed Linda Noskova.
Gauff’s second serve was particularly troublesome at the 2025 Canadian Open in Montreal. She hit 23 double faults in her opening round win over Danielle Collins — the fifth-highest number ever recorded in a WTA Tour match.
Despite this weakness, Gauff has established herself as a consistent challenger for the biggest titles in the sport. She is currently at a career-high ranking of world No 2 and secured her second Grand Slam title at the French Open in June.
In an exclusive interview with Tennis 365, Macci named Gauff when asked if there are any players he would like the chance to work with or advise.
“To consult or help someone, obviously right off the bat, it would be Coco Gauff,” Macci said.
“I mean, there’s no doubt about it, I could flip the script with her second serve and forehand. No doubt about it, but it’d have to be done in the off-season.”
Macci has repeatedly declared that Gauff’s second serve issues could be fixed in an hour, and he went in depth when asked to outline the changes that he would like to see.
“First off, her little brother is at our academy, and I’m very good friends with the Dad,” the American began.
“At the end of the day, they were gonna take off some time last year, year before, when there was a lot of time to do reconstructive surgery [on the serve], but you know, when you start winning a little bit, sometimes that speed bump or that technical flaw, can be kind of camouflaged.
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“But here we are, what, three years later… the second serve, still a little bit of an issue. It bubbles up under pressure. Everybody and their brother has chimed in. And not that the advice they’re giving is incorrect, but everybody’s probably looking at a symptom. And they’re not really understanding the origin or the culprit.
“What I mean by that – this has to be science-based and it has to be done from a biomechanical point of view. And I’ve looked at her serve from every different direction and right now, because she’s been doing this since a little kid, the muscle memory is baked in extra crispy. She has very, very long arms, she has a very loose arm.
“So, what I would do, and even my partner Dr. Brian Gordon — who has his PhD in Biomechanics, he did his thesis on this stuff — I would have her go to a platform stance, right now she does a pinpoint. And I’m not saying it’s wrong. I mean, [there are] world class servers [who use] pinpoint.
“But the corrective technique has to jolt the muscle memory, and I gotta re-programme the reflexes from the beginning. So, in a platform stance, it’d be like fresh out of the oven. And then from there, the whole timing would be very different, her vertical component would be easier to correct – that means her upward movement.
“So all these things that you see – opening up too soon, her head coming down, people talking about the toss and all this – that’s not the issue. They’re looking at it wrong.
“And I have no doubt, in one hour, this could be corrected. But as long as she keeps doing pinpoint, it’s all just gonna be like, just a modification of something that she’s just wired.”
Macci has coached a host of tennis stars during their formative years, including five players who went on to become world No 1: Serena Williams, Venus Williams, Maria Sharapova, Jennifer Capriati and Andy Roddick.
He also worked with Mary Pierce, Anastasia Myskina and Sofia Kenin, who won Grand Slam titles, and he was inducted into the USPTA Hall of Fame in 2017.
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