Coco Gauff\u2019s performance in her one-sided 2026 Australian Open defeat to Elina Svitolina has been described as \u201cshocking\u201d by former world No 4 Tim Henman.<\/p>\n
The two-time Grand Slam champion suffered a crushing 1-6, 2-6 loss to 12th-ranked Svitolina in just 59 minutes in the quarter-finals of the Melbourne major.<\/p>\n
Gauff<\/a> had a nightmare day on serve as she held in just two of her eight service games, having won only 41% of her first serve points and a brutal 18% of points on her second serve. The 21-year-old American hit five double faults on the 11 points she played on her second serve.<\/p>\n The world No 3 was also badly out of sorts from the baseline as she hit just three winners and committed 21 groundstroke unforced errors.<\/p>\n Speaking on TNT Sports, Henman expressed concerns that Gauff\u2019s display will \u201cdo damage mentally\u201d and leave \u201cscar tissue.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe all have bad days at the office, but I think in the context of being the favourite going into that match, she\u2019s a Grand Slam champion, she\u2019s won the French Open, she\u2019s won the US Open, she\u2019s three in the world\u2026 I mean, that was a shocking performance, there\u2019s no two ways about it,\u201d said the former British No 1.<\/p>\n \u201cSvitolina just took advantage, but when you get the top player who can really only kick that first serve in, she was serving at a hundred and 25 kilometres an hour and then making so many mistakes from the back of the court, your assets of your game have just been completely stripped apart in front of our eyes, so that was that was pretty tough to watch.<\/p>\n Coco Gauff\u2019s Australian Open prize money & ranking points after 59-minute defeat<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Australian Open: Why Iga Swiatek thinks it \u2018doesn\u2019t make sense\u2019 to focus on Elena Rybakina head-to-head<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Want more from Tennis365? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for tennis coverage you can trust.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThat can sort of kickstart you into action, but I think she was just playing so badly and this is, this result hasn\u2019t just sort of come overnight as it were; we know that she\u2019s been struggling.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s so much focus of attention and I think we all sympathise with Coco because she\u2019s such a great competitor. She\u2019s trying so hard to sort the forehand and the serve out.<\/p>\n \u201cBut to get through to the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam and have a match like this, I mean, that must do damage mentally. I think there has to be some scar tissue.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t just sort of say, \u2018oh, we\u2019ll forget about that and we move on.\u2019 To think that she\u2019s such a good player \u2014 she had three winners, 26 unforced errors in the match.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd that\u2019s that\u2019s impossible to compete really at any level. So, yeah, it was hardly surprising to see her frustration at the end.\u201d<\/p>\n Svitolina will face world No 1 Aryna Sabalenka in the Australian Open<\/a> semi-finals.<\/p>\n Watch the Australian Open on Eurosport, TNT Sports, HBO Max and discovery+<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n READ NEXT: American star\u2019s coach being investigated by WTA for alleged misconduct and inappropriate relationships \u2013 report<\/a> The post Coco Gauff\u2019s \u2018shocking\u2019 Australian Open display could cause \u2018scar tissue\u2019 \u2013 former world No 4<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Coco Gauff\u2019s performance in her one-sided 2026 Australian Open defeat to Elina Svitolina has been described as \u201cshocking\u201d by former world No 4 Tim Henman. The two-time Grand Slam champion suffered a crushing 1-6, 2-6 loss to 12th-ranked Svitolina in just 59 minutes in the quarter-finals of the Melbourne major. Gauff had a nightmare day […]<\/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-1670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1670","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=1670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1670\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Australian Open News<\/h2>\n
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