Former US tennis player Steve Johnson has questioned whether Coco Gauff should have made a critical comment towards her coach during her Dubai Tennis Championships defeat.<\/p>\n
World No 4 Gauff progressed to the semi-final of the WTA 1000 event last week<\/a>, with the American ultimately beaten by Elina Svitolina in a three-set thriller.<\/p>\n The two-time Grand Slam singles champion showcased her characteristic grit and determination to save a string of match points in an extraordinary second-set tiebreak, though ultimately was beaten 6-4, 6-7(13), 6-4 by the Ukrainian.<\/p>\n Gauff<\/a> fought hard during her semi-final defeat, but much like in other matches across her campaign in Dubai, her serve proved problematic at times.<\/p>\n The 21-year-old hit 12 double faults during her loss to Svitolina, and at one point vented her frustration towards Gavin MacMillan, one of her coaches<\/a>.<\/p>\n Biomechanical expert MacMillan joined Gauff\u2019s team ahead of the US Open last August, after she split with Matt Daly \u2014 who was also a biomechanics technician.<\/p>\n Gauff\u2019s serve has remained troublesome throughout large spells of her partnership with MacMillan, who works alongside the American\u2019s long-time coach, J.C Faurel.<\/p>\n And, after double faulting at 3-3 in set two, the American commented directly to MacMillan: \u201cI\u2019ve been doing everything you wanted for six months\u2026 I\u2019m not better at all.\u201d<\/p>\n The comment instantly drew attention and took many by surprise.<\/p>\n \u2018Absolute rock star\u2019 Alex Eala named the \u2018biggest draw in women\u2019s tennis\u2019 over Sabalenka and Gauff<\/a><\/p>\n Emma Raducanu\u2019s mega new sponsorship deal \u2018makes a lot of sense\u2019, according to former British No 1<\/a><\/p>\n Speaking on Nothing Major<\/em><\/a>, former world No 21 Johnson<\/a> admitted that he was among those surprised to see the reigning French Open champion make such a comment during the middle of a match.<\/p>\n He said: \u201cIt looked like she was saying: \u2018I\u2019ve done everything you\u2019ve asked and I\u2019m still serving like this.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s not what you want to be saying mid-match. I said that to my coaches a lot: \u2018Why am I playing so bad?\u2019 But that was more of a me issue.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s much better than me. So you would expect her not to have those kinds of in-match meltdowns.\u201d<\/p>\n Gauff is not in action this week and will return to court for the WTA 1000 event in Indian Wells next fortnight.<\/p>\n Action in California marks her first tournament on American soil this year, and will be swiftly followed by the Miami Open \u2014 another WTA 1000 event, and the second half of the \u2018Sunshine Double\u2019.<\/p>\n Home expectations will be high for the world No 4 in both events, with Gauff part of a strong US group in the top 10 of the WTA Rankings, alongside world No 5 Jessica Pegula, and world No 6 Amanda Anisimova.<\/p>\n However, the tournaments in Indian Wells and Miami have not traditionally been her happiest hunting grounds.<\/p>\n Gauff was a semi-finalist in Indian Wells in 2024 and a quarter-finalist back in 2023, though was beaten in the fourth round by Belinda Bencic twelve months ago.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, she has never made it to the quarter-finals of the Miami Open in six previous attempts, with the American falling in the fourth round in 2022, 2024, and 2025.<\/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 Read Next<\/strong>: WTA Indian Wells 2026 Entry List: Sabalenka, Swiatek, Rybakina, Gauff star; will Eala be seeded?<\/a><\/p>\n The post Coco Gauff leaves former US star surprised with mid-match comment to coach<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Former US tennis player Steve Johnson has questioned whether Coco Gauff should have made a critical comment towards her coach during her Dubai Tennis Championships defeat. World No 4 Gauff progressed to the semi-final of the WTA 1000 event last week, with the American ultimately beaten by Elina Svitolina in a three-set thriller. The two-time […]<\/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-1788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1788","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=1788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1788\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Tennis News<\/h2>\n