What Aryna Sabalenka has previously said about Coco Gauff’s new coach is very interesting 

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Coco Gauff has made a big decision to do something that Aryna Sabalenka once did by hiring a biomechanical coach.

Gauff has struggled on serve throughout the North American hard court swing, with her latest defeat coming against Jasmine Paolini at the Cincinnati Open.

Following this, Gauff has decided to part ways with her coach Matt Daly after working together for less than a year.

As she looks to prepare for the US Open, Gauff has now been spotted practicing alongside Sabalenka’s former technique coach.

How Gavin MacMillan helped Aryna Sabalenka fix her serving woes

Serving issues are not exclusive to Gauff, and they are something that Sabalenka also heavily struggled with at the start of the 2022 season.

Sabalenka has admitted she nearly quit tennis due to these serving issues, that saw her hit over 20 double faults in some matches.

As a result of these issues, Sabalenka hired Gavin MacMillan, who specialises in the biomechanical approach to serving.

MacMillan vastly helped improve Sabalenka’s serve, helping her win three Grand Slam titles with his changes.

When speaking in a press conference at the Australian Open earlier this year, Sabalenka explained how MacMillan helped her.

“When I look back, I think someone was just forcing me to try something else to improve my serve, because my serve right now is much better,” said Sabalenka. “Even before that situation happened with my serve, I was serving pretty well, but right now, looking back, it wasn’t enough for winning a Grand Slam.

“At the end, I’m super happy that that happened to me, and I was able to reach out to Gavin… MacMillan (a performance specialist). “We worked on the biomechanics and we improved my serve so much.

“To answer the question how I was able to get out from that situation, I don’t know. Honestly, we tried so many things. You know, at some point you just have to step back, and you have to realise a lot of things in life. You come to the point when you understand that tennis is just tennis? There is bigger things in life.

“You just have to try your best, I don’t know, go through it. You just have to go out there without any fear of losing the match or facing the same struggle one more time. I just have so much love for this sport, and I was just, like, ‘keep trying, keep trying’. Finally I found a way. I improved my serve, and I was able to achieve so many things.”

This is not the only time that Sabalenka has praised MacMillan for his work, going more into the technical specifics at the Wuhan Open last year.

“Before I was trying to over-rush things, try to run to the ball, meet it earlier…but in my case, I have to actually wait for the shot and wait for the right moment to actually hit the forehand, to make that rotation, which gives me much more power and control on the shot.

“I mean, probably I’m not the best one to explain in English what I mean. You can talk more to Gavin. He can explain you a bit more in details.”

The shot that Gavin MacMillan said helped Aryna Sabalenka win her first Grand Slam

MacMillan has also spoken about how he made changes to Sabalenka’s game, and it is not just the serve that he can help improve.

Alongside her serve, Gauff’s forehand has also been a big talking point throughout her career, and when talking to Performance-Plus Tennis MacMillan claimed the improvements in Sabalenka’s forehand helped her win the 2023 Australian Open final.

“The footwork wasn’t right, but it was linear, so everything was really back and forward,” Macmillan said about Sabalenka’s forehand in 2024. “She wasn’t getting her arm coiled, she wasn’t getting the racquet head vertical enough times…when the racquet’s vertical, the hand can roll around the wrist, the forearm rolls around the elbow, and the humerus rotates around the shoulder and whips out.

“With contact, she’s really gotten a lot better coming around the ball as opposed to driving it, because otherwise you’re actually decelerating. Now the arm can accelerate.

“In the [2023 Australian Open] final against [Elena] Rybakina, the forehand was the difference, a heavy deep forehand that you know you can make under pressure and puts pressure on the opponent. That’s the shot that wins tournaments. It’s not the freaky [Carlos] Alcaraz winners that he’s so capable of, but what he does to you extraordinarily well is puts you under pressure with your basic rally shot, what you know you can make when it matters.”

Gauff has already won two major titles, and she will be hoping that MacMillan can make similar improvements to her game like he did with Sabalenka.

After being overtaken by Cincinnati Open champion Iga Swiatek in the WTA rankings, Gauff will be the third seed at the US Open this year.