Gauff's Aim: Deliver the Warmth

By Richard Pagliaro | @Tennis_Now | Wednesday, July 3, 2024
Photograph credit score: Rob Newell/CameraSport

A yr earlier than Coco Gauff gained her maiden main on the US Open, she was already going locations.

The 20-year-old Gauff earned her first Class E driver’s license again in 2022.

More: Gauff Soars Into Wimbledon Third Round

Nowadays, Gauff goals of bringing the gasoline.

World No. 2 Gauff crushed 19-year-old Grand Slam debutant Anca Todoni 6-2, 6-1, rolling into the Wimbledon second spherical in simply 66 minutes.

Gauff didn’t drop serve in at this time’s win and has surrendered simply six video games in two event wins.

Afterward, Gauff was requested if she checks the radar gun after serves as former world No. 1 Serena Williams did.

Not solely does Gauff scan serve velocity as a gauge of going for it, she shared a serve revelation.

Gauff is a velocity freak with a serving objective: Crank a 130 mph serve in a match.

“I do examine the serve velocity typically within the match as a result of I strive to verify I’m going for it,” Gauff mentioned. “Generally unconsciously while you’re tight, perhaps you attempt to simply get the serve in. There are occasions the place I will examine.

“If I miss, even when I miss and the serve is like 119 or 118 and up, I am like okay, that is good. I hate to overlook when it is slower. I wish to get to 130. I feel the quickest I’ve gotten is 128. Do I’ve a 130 in me? I do not know. Possibly if I used to be somewhat bit taller. I can get positively 130. Now, if it goes in, I do not know.”

If that 130 mph triple digit warmth sounds a bit formidable—Georgina García Pérez owns the quickest recorded ladies’s serve at 136.7 mph—take into account at this time Gauff’s quickest serve was 122 mph and her common first-serve velocity was 112 mph.

On the 2022 US Open, Gauff rocketed a 128 mph serve—the seventh-fastest recorded ladies’s serve within the Open Period (keep in mind the US Open is infamous for a quick radar gun)—and Corridor of Famer and seismic server Andy Roddick, who has labored with Gauff streamlining her serve and decreasing her ball toss a bit—has mentioned throughout his Tennis Channel commentary that she routinely hits mid to excessive 120 mph serves in apply.

In fact, the very best servers present us serving share, second-serve energy and serving amid break-point stress are all key parts to a growing a dominant serve.

Right this moment, Gauff served simply 43 % for the match and was underneath 40 % on first serves within the first set. Whereas she backed up each first and second serves superbly, you marvel if a extra skilled and harmful opponent may have challenged her second serve greater than the teenage Todoni.

Reigning US Open champion Gauff is the one lady to succeed in a minimum of the semifinals of the final three straight Grand Slams.

Balancing her first-serve share along with her need to carry the excessive octane gasoline and exterminate factors might be a key to Gauff making a deep run at The Championships.

If the 5’9″ Gauff can speed up on first serve and elevate her first-serve share, she may develop right into a dominant surfaces on quick surfaces.

Whereas we frequently consider massive servers standing at or close to 6′ in ladies’s tennis—Althea Gibson, Venus Williams, Brenda Shultz-McCarthy, Lindsay Davenport, Petra Kvitova, Naomi Osaka, Karolina Pliskova, Kristyna Pliskova, Elena Rybakina, and so forth.—keep in mind among the finest servers in Open Period historical past, together with Serena Williams, Steffi Graf, Martina Navratilova and Ash Barty have been every 5’9″ or shorter.

The 2022 French Open finalist Gauff will face British qualifier Sonay Kartal for a fourth-round spot.Kartal defeated Frenchwomen Clara Burel 6-3, 5-7, 6-3.

“I take each second significantly, each semifinal, each quarterfinal. I do not go in considering I’ll have many extra, simply calm down, as a result of you do not know that, nothing is promised,” Gauff mentioned at this time. “I feel having that I simply really feel like, no matter no matter occurs in my profession, I will at all times have that to my identify.

“I’ve much more aspirations clearly than simply successful one. I feel the beginning of 1 simply offers you a style and offers you the idea that you are able to do it once more.”