Andrea Petkovic suspects Coco Gauff may have inadvertently returned to her old serve grip and that's why she is back to spraying double faults.
After struggling mightily with her serve during the summer and seeing that directly impact her results at Wimbledon, the Paris Olympics and the US Open, the world No. 3 parted ways with Brad Gilbert and brought in Matt Daly. And addressing her service woes was the priority.
This is my hot take. I think what happened when she hired the new coach, Matt Daly, he changed her grip on the serve a bit. My theory is, when you change a grip, with time, if you dont remember it all the time, it goes back to the old grip If youre not constantly being warned: Hey, think about the new grip, think about the new grip,'" Petkovic explained on the Becker-Petkovic podcast.
ADVERTISEMENT
Petkovic: My theory is that Gauff returned to her old grip on the serve
The 2014 French Open semifinalist noted that Gauff showed improvement on her serve in late 2024 and early 2025 and that her double-fault numbers started to decline. Then, the ex-German tennis star mentioned that the 21-year-old abruptly got back to blasting double faults, hitting 21 double faults against Moyuka Uchijima, nine against Maria Sakkari and eight versus Belinda Bencic in Indian Wells. Also, the American double-faulted 12 during a shock Miami loss to Magda Linette.
So, something is not right with the serve. My theory is that the grip has gone back to the old one, and therefore, it does not work at the moment," Petkovic concluded.
At this point, many agree that Gauff's service issues aren't only technical but also mental since it is clear that her confidence in her serve has been shaken.
ADVERTISEMENT
Since the one-time Grand Slam champion's Miami run ended early, she had a lot of time to work on fixing the issue and it will be interesting to see how will her serve look at the start of the clay season.
