Coco Gauff admitted she was taking her opening Indian Wells win as a significant \u201cpositive\u201d after overcoming serving woes in a scrappy contest.<\/p>\n
World No 3 and third seed Gauff<\/a> was pushed to the brink by world No 52 Moyuka Uchijima on Saturday, with the American ultimately sealing a 6-4, 3-6, 7-6(4) triumph.<\/p>\n Despite a solid first-serve percentage of 65%, Gauff hit a staggering 21 double faults \u2013 compared to just four aces \u2013 and hit 74 unforced errors, compared to 37 winners.<\/p>\n However, victory for Gauff came after back-to-back opening-match defeats in Doha and Dubai, and an Australian Open quarter-final exit.<\/p>\n Gauff is not playing anywhere close to the level that saw her claim the China Open and WTA Finals titles towards the end of 2024, and guide USA to the United Cup title back in January.<\/p>\n However, after three straight losses, the 20-year-old revealed it was merely a relief to get back to winning ways.<\/p>\n \u201cI think if I just double-faulted less, it could have probably been a straight-set match,\u201d said Gauff. \u201cOff the ground, I felt like I was dictating more of the rallies.<\/p>\n \u201cBut, coming off a tough couple back-to-back losses, I guess it\u2019s just taking it more as a positive maybe than if I had a couple good weeks [in my] last two tournaments.<\/p>\n \u201cThe unforced errors, I had to go bigger towards the end of the match, and even in the middle, because I felt like she would dictate. It\u2019s kind of: \u2018just take your chances.\u2019 Then doubles [double faults], I\u2019ve been in the practice of trying to fix things on my serve.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was just an up-and-down process \u2013 it\u2019s tough out there. But, if I\u2019m able to win matches playing D tennis, then it gives me confidence just when I\u2019m able to mesh things together like I did earlier this season.\u201d<\/p>\n Up next for Gauff is 29th seed Maria Sakkari<\/a>, who defeated the world No 3 in the Indian Wells semi-finals a year ago.<\/p>\n Gauff will head in as a significant favourite following the Greek\u2019s struggles after that run, though will likely need to raise her game.<\/p>\n The 2023 US Open champion conceded that her level had been \u201cfrustrating\u201d \u2013 but that she was trying not to worry too much about her performance on the whole.<\/p>\n Who is Sonay Kartal? Emma Raducanu\u2019s former rival set for rankings breakthrough<\/a><\/p>\n Carlos Alcaraz matches Rafael Nadal milestone after thrilling Indian Wells win<\/a><\/p>\n She added: \u201cI think today is just one of those days you just don\u2019t feel great on the court. So it\u2019s frustrating in that way, because I was having such great practices this week.<\/p>\n \u201cI think sometimes in sports you want to just stay on the high and kind of ride that wave, but especially with this sport, a season as long as tennis, it\u2019s kind of impossible to always be on that high wave.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s going to be some low moments, I think. I\u2019m just trying to stick through those tough moments and get better through them.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like I\u2019m able to turn it around. It\u2019s happened before. I think it just takes one match or two matches to kind of get that confidence back.\u201d<\/p>\n Read Next<\/strong>:\u00a0Gauff and Keys out to join Serena Williams on list of American women to win Indian Wells title<\/a><\/p>\n The post Coco Gauff\u2019s \u2018accepting\u2019 admission after double faults marr scrappy Indian Wells win<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Coco Gauff admitted she was taking her opening Indian Wells win as a significant \u201cpositive\u201d after overcoming serving woes in a scrappy contest. World No 3 and third seed Gauff was pushed to the brink by world No 52 Moyuka Uchijima on Saturday, with the American ultimately sealing a 6-4, 3-6, 7-6(4) triumph. Despite a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Indian Wells News<\/h2>\n