Alexandra Stevenson thinks Coco Gauff and her biomechanics coach Gavin MacMillan "got it backwards," as the former Wimbledon semifinalist believes the 21-year-old should have first focused on improving her serve and then the forehand.
Although Gauff managed to put her serving and forehand issues under control during the clay swing (she reached back-to-back finals in Madrid and Rome before winning the French Open), her troubles resurfaced during the grass season. After going a disappointing 0-2 on grass and losing in the Wimbledon first round, the world No. 3 continued to struggle at the start of the North American hard-court swing and didn't do particularly well in Montreal and Cincinnati.
That was enough for Gauff to finally pull the trigger and do what many had wanted her to do for quite some time – she hired a biomechanics coach to help her fix her technique and motion. If you can recall, MacMillan famously helped Aryna Sabalenka overcome her serving woes in 2022 before the Belarusian went on to win four Grand Slams and reach the world No. 1 ranking.
Stevenson, a former world No. 18, liked Gauff's decision to hire MacMillan, but suggests they didn't get their priorities right.
Stevenson: They should have attacked the serve first and then focused on solving the forehand
“I haven’t seen her practices, but technically there’s like three things that she should be able to fix right away. In practice, that doesn’t mean under pressure — the serve and forehand go together, so the forehand was first, but it should have been the serve fixed first, I think," the 1999 Wimbledon semifinalist said on the Inside-In podcast.
“I think they should have attacked the serve and then gone off the forehand, because when you don’t have a serve, and you lose it, you lose your forehand, that’s just across the board in tennis. So they did it backwards, but they’re working on it, and she’s still beating girls, because on the women’s tour now the serve is an issue.”
Gauff showed some signs of improvement on her serve shortly after hiring MacMillan. After adding MacMillan, the 21-year-old stated multiple times that she was looking at the bigger picture and focused on improving, rather than getting the results straight away.
