Coco Gauff has developed into one of the WTA Tour’s most dangerous players, picking up several big titles over recent years.
The American star continues to impress in women’s tennis and is currently ranked third on the WTA Tour.
Gauff won the WTA Finals last year and added a second WTA 1000 title to her collection in China as she beat Karolina Muchova, 6-1, 6-3.
Having won the US Open in 2023, the 20-year-old was looking for more Grand Slam success in Melbourne to kick off 2025 but came up short as Gauff lost to Paula Badosa in the quarter-finals.
Gauff hit a worrying 41 unforced errors during her quarter-final defeat to Badosa, as her forehand deserted her at times.
Her forehand has been a key point of discussion over recent years, as her junior coach now reveals where he thinks the problems began.
Coco Gauff’s junior coach Sly Black thinks other coaches took their ‘eye off’ her forehand
Speaking on Coach Life, Gauff’s junior coach, Sly Black gave his thoughts on her forehand troubles.
“What happened somewhere along the line, between 13 and when she went to [Patrick] Mouratoglou, she started developing a little hitch in her forehand,” he said.
“My only guess is, I didn’t see her for a couple of years, my concept is that they must have taken their eye off of her forehand.
“For four years we didn’t take our eyes off of the forehand, it was always every day a work in progress.
“The forehand was never a problem I can tell you that 100%, Gerard [Loglo] will tell you the same thing, her dad will tell you the same thing too.
“What I’m sure of, is she became number one junior in the world at 13 years old, so everybody must’ve thought everything was fine, nobody was keeping an eye on everything, making sure what got her to number one spot, kept that going.
“I saw [the hitch in her forehand] when she was 15/16 years old, but what I’m surprised about, even when the new coaches saw it, they did not make an effort to clean it up because she was winning, still number one in the world [in her age group].”
Black then explained how he felt hearing Gauff’s coaches comment on her forehand.
“The most disappointing part is listening to a couple of her coaches, especially Brad Gilbert, who I think is a very good coach,” he said.
“He actually said they weren’t going to change anything in the forehand.
“I’m like what! That was Cori’s strong point growing up.
“If they just spent a couple of months making the tweak, it’s what makes the men so good, [Roger] Federer, [Novak] Djokovic, [Rafael] Nadal, they kept improving when they were growing, it’s amazing, they kept improving in their 30s.”
Gauff split with coach Brad Gilbert following her shock early exit at the 2024 US Open, bringing in Matt Daly as his replacement.
Sly Black reveals what ‘nobody’ did to Coco Gauff when she was a junior
Gauff’s forehand may have become somewhat of a problem shot over recent years, but that wasn’t always the case.
Black insists that Gauff’s forehand was her biggest ‘weapon’ during her younger years, so much so that her opponents would actively avoid playing balls to it.
“We’d always modeled her game to have a solid serve and a forehand, so that was actually her game during the early development stage, and that was the plan,” he said.
“A very simple plan, very easy, we saw [Roger] Federer doing it, [Pete] Sampras too, so her dad loved that idea, and I was up for it as well because that’s my game too.
“We didn’t spend that much time deviating away from that concept; her forehand was always a weapon.
“During the junior stages, I remember in the tournaments nobody would hit the ball to her forehand, everybody wanted to play to the backhand.
“Her travelling coach, Gerard Loglo, he would always come back and say we’ve got to fix this on the backhand, so we were never fixing anything on the forehand, because it was always consistent progress up.”
Coco Gauff suffers shock defeat at the Qatar Open
Gauff was looking to put her forehand woes behind her as she headed to the Middle East for the Doha WTA 1000 event.
Entering in round two as the number three seed, Gauff faced off against world number 21 Marta Kostyuk.
The American was heavily favored to advance to the third round in Qatar, although the Ukrainian star had other ideas.
Kostyuk remarkably won in straight sets, 6-2, 7-5, as she comfortably beat Gauff in their first WTA Tour meeting.
The Ukrainian will now play Poland’s Magda Linette on Thursday, February 14.
Gauff will return to action for the Dubai Tennis Championships, which begin on February 17 in the UAE.
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