One of Coco Gauff‘s weakest points over the years has been her serve. For starters, she didn’t clock high speeds and also messed up games on several occasions by committing a number of double faults. But all of that appears to have changed as Gauff drastically improved her serve heading into the US Open.

A great example of that came in her Round of 64 clash at the Cincinnati Masters. Gauff played Liudmila Samsonova in what was quite a close contest. The American lost the first set, but then mounted a remarkable comeback to clinch the match 2-6, 6-4, 6-1. But the striking part of her performance was her dominance on the serve. Not only did Gauff win 81% of the points on her first serve, but she also fired 11 aces in comparison to Samsonova’s five.

“Overall, I think I served well,” Gauff told The Tennis Channel after the match. “I think that kind of helped me and carried me through when I wasn’t feeling so great off the ground, and then eventually things started to click. I started to return better, so yeah.”

A reason why Gauff has been able to improve her serve is that she has brought versatility to it. It is certainly not easy to read her serve anymore, and the 22-year-old feels it has brought a major difference in her overall performance.

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“I think I’m going big, honestly. I feel that I’m really confident with my serve now, so I’m going for it pretty much all times unless I feel that my percentage is too low, but I think the biggest thing that has made the difference is just mixing up the versatility. I feel like I’m really random now. I don’t know what the stats say, but I feel like I’m mixing it up a lot on my serve, so it’s tough to read. Yeah, I think I’m doing a good job with that and just trying to keep improving,” she added.

Gauff didn’t have a great start to her match against Samsonova. Her serve was broken on two occasions, and she lost the first set quite convincingly. The second set was neck-and-neck and appeared to be heading towards a tiebreaker until the 10th game. The American clinched a decisive break while leading 5-4 to level the match.

Samsonova capitulated in the third set as Gauff won the final five games in a row to advance to the Round of 32 after two hours and six minutes. This was the World No. 4’s fifth straight win in the matchup, and she now leads the H2H record by 5-0. More impressively, this was her 11th comeback win of the season. Her nearest competitor here is Jessica Pegula who has 10 such wins on the Tour in 2026.

The improvement in Gauff’s serve is evident. One of the people behind this improvement is her serving coach, Gavin MacMillan, who had previously worked with Aryna Sabalenka. She hired him in August of 2025, but the results just weren’t there at the time.

Coco Gauff had topped the list for the most double faults on the WTA circuit in 2025

Despite finishing as the World No. 3 and claiming two singles titles, Gauff found herself leading an unwanted year-end list for the 2025 season. She topped the list for the most double faults after committing 431 of them during the season. Moreover, she was far ahead of Ekaterina Alexandrova’s tally of 300, who stood second on the list.

These struggles weren’t anything new for Gauff, as she was the only WTA player to serve over 400 double faults in the 2024 season. It was evident that something had to be done, and fast. Though the appointment of MacMillan didn’t seem to be beneficial at first, the results started to show in 2026.

Though Gauff still serves double faults, she has brought down the number. With the season about to reach its climax soon, she has served a total of 279 double faults so far. While the number isn’t very low, the improvement is crystal clear. Gauff will be aiming to limit her double faults even more in the coming tournaments, especially the US Open.

After defeating Samsonova in Cincinnati, Gauff will be taking on Ann Li in the next match. The World No. 4 is the favorite to win the clash as she leads the H2H record by 3-0. But Li is a competitor who does have the potential to cause an upset, and with Gauff having a habit of not starting on a strong note, the match can be a close affair.