Former world No 1 Andy Roddick has heaped praise on Coco Gauff and her \u201csuperpower\u201d of being able to win when not at her best, ahead of her 2026 campaign.<\/p>\n
Gauff\u2019s<\/a> game was scrutinised heavily throughout the stages of the 2025 season, with flaws on her serve and forehand once again coming in for particular analysis and scrutiny.<\/p>\n Issues across the summer saw the American split with her coach of eleven months, Matt Daly, ahead of the US Open<\/a>, with the 21-year-old bringing in Gavin MacMillan to work alongside J.C. Faurel for the rest of 2025, and into 2026.<\/p>\n However, despite some apparent issues in her game, 2025 was another landmark year for Gauff, and the American captured her second Grand Slam singles title at the French Open \u2014 beating world No 1 Aryna Sabalenka in the final.<\/a><\/p>\n Gauff also lifted her third WTA 1000 career singles title at the Wuhan Open in October<\/a>, and attained further runner-up finishes at the Madrid Open and Italian Open, finishing 2025 ranked third in the world.<\/p>\n It was the third straight season in which Gauff finished the year as the world No 3 and, speaking on his Served<\/em> <\/a>podcast, Roddick<\/a> was keen to highlight his compatriot\u2019s key strengths.<\/p>\n \u201cWith Coco at number three, and I think this is what we are going to start doing when we cover her moving forward as it\u2019s only fair, we are not going to start from a negative place,\u201d said Roddick.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are going to talk about how she is able to settle in. How she is able to apply her game. How she is able to create errors and stress for her opponent, to rely on her legs.<\/p>\n Aryna Sabalenka and Nick Kyrgios \u2018money grab\u2019 exhibition gets scathing verdict \u2013 \u2018I hope the money was worth it\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n Alex Eala reveals Rafael Nadal \u2018gave me some tips\u2019 as she opens up on unique practice session<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cShe has one of the biggest and hardest backhands in the world that people do not talk about enough. She is able to work the forehand to drive traffic. She sets up her defense with patterns. It is not an accident.\u201d<\/p>\n Double faults were undoubtedly an issue for Gauff at times across the year, with the 23 double faults she hit against Danielle Collins at the Canadian Open among the highest ever recorded in a WTA match<\/a>.<\/p>\n However, Gauff was still able to seal victory in that match and won a string of matches across the year where she appeared to be far from her best.<\/p>\n Roddick, the 2003 US Open champion, described this ability as Gauff\u2019s \u201csuperpower\u201d and said she was the very best at winning when still \u201cuncomfortable\u201d with her game.<\/p>\n He added: \u201cTo go through things that are physically and mentally not working and to get through it and win consistently is a superpower.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no world where anyone else on earth can be dealing with 20 or 25 double faults and we are looking up and at scale, not for a tournament, every year she is two in the world, three in the world. She does not leave those positions.<\/p>\n \u201cIt does not matter how much we see her struggle. We have to give credit where credit is due for Coco at some point.<\/p>\n \u201cIf the losses are ugly, I don\u2019t care. She is the best in the world at being uncomfortable on a given day and getting a win.\u201d<\/p>\n Gauff\u2019s 2026 season will begin at the United Cup, where she will look to help the United States successfully defend its title in the mixed team event.<\/p>\n That will then be followed by the opening Grand Slam of the year at the Australian Open, where Gauff was a quarter-finalist in 2025, and a semi-finalist in 2024.<\/p>\n Want more from Tennis365? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites<\/a> list for tennis coverage you can trust.<\/strong><\/p>\n Read Next<\/strong>: WTA Rankings: Amanda Anisimova reaches new milestone as she moves ahead of Coco Gauff<\/a><\/p>\n The post Coco Gauff\u2019s key \u2018superpower\u2019 hailed by former world No 1 ahead of 2026<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Former world No 1 Andy Roddick has heaped praise on Coco Gauff and her \u201csuperpower\u201d of being able to win when not at her best, ahead of her 2026 campaign. Gauff\u2019s game was scrutinised heavily throughout the stages of the 2025 season, with flaws on her serve and forehand once again coming in for particular […]<\/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-1532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1532","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=1532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1532\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Tennis News<\/h2>\n