Coco Gauff has expressed her frustration at failing to translate her work in practice onto the match court after her disappointing exit at the 2026 Qatar Open.<\/p>\n
The two-time Grand Slam champion was stunned 6-4, 6-2 by world No 57 Elisabetta Cocciaretto in her opening match at the WTA<\/a> 1000 tournament in Doha on Tuesday.<\/p>\n Gauff<\/a> landed just 14 winners to 39 unforced errors, while her serve was broken by her 25-year-old Italian opponent on four occasions.<\/p>\n The world No 5, who received an opening round bye as a top eight seed in Qatar, was playing her first match since losing 6-1, 6-2 to Elina Svitolina in the Australian Open quarter-finals in just 59 minutes.<\/p>\n Following her loss to Cocciaretto, Gauff spoke candidly about her level in her recent defeats.<\/p>\n \u201cI just feel like I haven\u2019t showed up with my best level the last few matches,\u201d said the American. \u201cI\u2019m just looking to find that again.<\/p>\n \u201cI just feel like some of the things I\u2019ve been working on in practice aren\u2019t translating to the match court, which is super frustrating.<\/p>\n Worrying Coco Gauff stat revealed as nightmare Qatar Open streak continues with latest defeat<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n WTA Rankings: Iga Swiatek & Elena Rybakina battle for world No 2 at Qatar Open<\/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 \u201cI\u2019ve been having good practices, but just not playing well in the matches. I just need to find how it can translate.<\/p>\n \u201cI tried to be more aggressive and was hitting more unforced errors. When I tried to be a little more passive and play with more shape, she was taking the ball early and crushing the ball.<\/p>\n \u201cI think I need to figure out how to play against players like her, who hit super flat and take everything early.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the last two matches showed I\u2019ve been struggling with that. That\u2019s something I need to work on in practice.\u201d<\/p>\n The 21-year-old went on to highlight the fact that her serve has not been her biggest problem this year.<\/p>\n \u201cToday, with only three double faults, that\u2019s positive, and same with the matches I had in Australia,\u201d Gauff assessed.<\/p>\n \u201cI think there weren\u2019t many double faults there, as well. That\u2019s the one positive. Now I need to figure out what I\u2019m doing off the ground to lose these matches.<\/p>\n \u201cPhysically, I know I can do it and I can do it when there\u2019s not much pressure. I need to figure out how to do it when there\u2019s more pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n Gauff will next compete at the WTA 1000 tournament in Dubai, which will begin on 15 February.<\/p>\n READ NEXT: Iga Swiatek, Coco Gauff and Amanda Anisimova give their opinions on playing best-of-five sets<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n The post Coco Gauff candidly speaks out about her struggles after early Qatar Open exit<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Coco Gauff has expressed her frustration at failing to translate her work in practice onto the match court after her disappointing exit at the 2026 Qatar Open. The two-time Grand Slam champion was stunned 6-4, 6-2 by world No 57 Elisabetta Cocciaretto in her opening match at the WTA 1000 tournament in Doha on Tuesday. […]<\/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-1744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1744","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=1744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1744\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}WTA Tour News<\/h2>\n
What next for Coco Gauff?<\/h2>\n