Coco Gauff Reflects On her Opening Match Victory at the Cincinnati Following “Small Adjustments” to her Game

Coco Gauff will face Ukrainian star Dayana Yastremska in the third round of the Cincinnati Open, a rematch of the Wimbledon first-round clash

Coco Gauff Reflects On her Opening Match Victory at the Cincinnati Following “Small Adjustments” to her Game

Coco Gauff (image via Getty)

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Coco Gauff finally got her needed revenge against Wang Xinyu in the second round of the Cincinnati Open. The American star had lost to the Chinese in her opening match at the Berlin Tennis Open in June, weeks after winning her second Grand Slam at the French Open. But on the hard court in Ohio, she needed an hour and eleven minutes to beat Xinyu.

During Gauff’s interview with Tennis Channel after the win, she revealed that she had a shaky start to the match, but was able to overcome it in the end. The World No.2 added that she made a few adjustments to her game and will continue to stick to it as the tournament goes on:

I felt very good before starting the match, although I had a somewhat shaky start with my service, but then I was able to overcome it and move forward. I have been training well all week, feeling good on the court, so I am happy to have transferred all those sensations today. The conditions here are a bit faster than in Montreal, so it takes a little extra time to adapt. Today, I am still working on those small adjustments.

Gauff arrived at Cincinnati with a poor run at the Canadian Open. She managed to reach the fourth round before losing to eventual champion and 18-year-old sensation Victoria Mboko in straight sets. But before that, she had coughed up 23 double faults in her opening match against Danielle Collins in Montreal.

She hit 14 double faults against Veronika Kudermetova in the next match, before only hitting six against Mboko. She followed the trend at the Cincinnati Open, hitting eight double faults in her first three service games against Wang, but got her game together and had zero faults in the rest of the match.

As the game progressed, Gauff got better on the court, hitting with more precision, while gaining more footing on the hard court. In the second set, Wang tried to push the American star by trying some drop shots, but that didn’t work well for her. Gauff went on to win the match 6-3, 6-2, gaining her first win over the Chinese after three meetings.

Since winning the French Open, Gauff has lost three of her last six matches. Also, since the start of the North American hard-court swing, she has hit 50 double faults on the court, despite just playing four matches. She hopes to improve on her game at the Cincinnati Open ahead of the final Grand Slam of the season at the US Open.

Coco Gauff gives details to how she recovers after each tournament

For the past three years, one of the major discussions on tour has been the mental health of players and how they cope with pressure. Some players like Andrey Rublev and Iga Swiatek have added a psychologist to their team to help them deal with those issues. During the aforementioned interview, Coco Gauff was asked how she tries to keep herself fresh amidst her current rough patch on tour:

I train a lot every day, about four or five hours a day, but that’s what I need to not lose momentum between tournaments. This helps me to keep rediscovering my tennis every day, although it’s a routine we are used to with so much travel, hotels, and tournaments on the calendar. Ultimately, the idea of disconnecting a bit from tennis is something you learn as the years go by, so now I force myself to do it occasionally, I love doing it.

Coco Gauff Canadian Open 2025
Coco Gauff (image via Jimmie48 Photography)

Gauff will face Dayana Yastremska in the third round of the Cincinnati Open. The Ukrainian star won her second-round clash against Viktoriya Tomova in three sets to earn her place against the American. It will be their fifth meeting on tour, with Gauff leading 3-1 in their head-to-head record.

However, in their last two meetings, Yastremska has begun to improve against Gauff. She won the first set against the 21-year-old at the Madrid Open before losing the match in three sets. But at the Wimbledon Championship, she stunned Gauff 7-6(3), 6-1 in the first round.