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Andy Roddick has a prediction about what’s going to happen to Coco Gauff’s serve in future

Coco Gauff celebrates at the US Open, with an inset of Andy Roddick speaking during the International Tennis Hall of Fame induction ceremony for th...
Credit: Robert Prange/Matthew J. Lee/The Boston Globe / Getty Images
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Coco Gauff is through to round three at the US Open after defeating Donna Vekic in straight sets at Arthur Ashe Stadium.

The American was forced to a tiebreak in the first set by the former Wimbledon semifinalist, but managed to come out on top and take the second set comfortably, 7-6, 6-2.

Her triumph marked a second victory under the wing of biomechanics specialist Gavin MacMillan, who became Gauff’s new coach before the start of the tournament after she parted ways with Matthew Daly.

MacMillan, who previously worked with Aryna Sabalenka, has implemented a new service motion into the world number three’s game, which Andy Roddick has kept a close eye on at Flushing Meadows.

Coco Gauff reacts in the second round at the US Open.
Photo by Robert Prange/Getty Images

Andy Roddick makes a prediction about Coco Gauff’s serve

Analysing her performance on an episode of Served, Roddick said of Gauff: “We can talk about serve and concern for serve, and that is a separate conversation from Coco addressing things head on.

“She has not hid from anything ever. Head on, dealt with it. The serve is mental, and I have stood three feet from her and watched her hit 50 beautifully serves in a row. I have seen it.

“She has the ability to be a great server. I do think that she will be a dominant server at some point. I really do. I hope this works.

“The first serve percentage is higher because she is spinning it in and going for the middle of the box. The priority is making it.

“She has 125 in her arm. She can hit it that big. I have seen it. It is absurd. The good serves right now look cleaner than they did three weeks ago, so credit to the new team, but you can’t create muscle memory in four days.

“I think it’s just an unrealistic expectation. So I don’t know what we were expecting, like a magic mix. There is no aspirin for this. It’s going to take a minute and take some work.

“There is nobody more up to the task than Coco Gauff, but to go seven full matches with this amount of stress is going to be very hard.”

Coco Gauff’s serving statistics against Donna Vekic

With her new service motion, Gauff’s first match at the US Open against Ajla Tomljanovic saw her first serve percentage at 60%.

Against Vekic, that total improved to 69%, in a match where the 21-year-old tallied two aces and eight double faults.

StatisticTotal
Aces2
Double Faults8
First Serve Percentage69%
Win Percentage On First Serve64%
Win Percentage On Second Serve45%
Coco Gauff’s serving statistics against Donna Vekic

She had an increased win percentage on her first serve, with 64%, but her second serve win percentage fell from 60% in the first round, to 45% in the second.

Vekic had six break-point opportunities against Gauff and was able to capitalise on four of them.