Coco Gauff has addressed her poor run of form after crashing out in the fourth round of Indian Wells. The world No. 3 came into the tournament on a three-match losing streak and has not been beyond the quarter-final of any regular singles event.
Things fell apart for Gauff in the final set of her showdown with Belinda Bencic when she was broken despite leading 40-0 at 4-4. The 20-year-old has now reflected on her recent defeats and admitted she wanted to do better.
Gauff ended 2024 on a high by winning the WTA Finals and had a strong start to the season when she entered the United Cup, a team event. She helped America lift the title, beating Iga Swiatek en route.
But she has since failed to carry that form into the big singles tournaments. The nine-time title winner reached the quarter-final at the Australian Open before suffering back-to-back opening-round exits in Doha and Dubai.
Gauff finally ended her losing streak in Indian Wells, beating Moyuka Uchijima and Maria Sakkari on her way to the last 16. But she was ousted by Bencic on Wednesday, who won 3-6 6-3 6-4.
The 20-year-old was later asked about her relative “slump” so far in 2025 and put her losses into perspective.
“I mean, overall I feel it’s not as bad as it seems, I guess,” Gauff replied.
“I mean, start of the year, I did well at United Cup and lost to Paula fourth round in Australia. Middle East wasn’t a great swing for me. Here, I mean, I lost 6-4 in the third in the fourth round against a tough opponent who’s coming off a 500 win.”
While some of her losses came to in-form, top players, Gauff still expects more from herself.
She continued: “Obviously I wanted to do better, want to have better results, but it’s not something I can crush myself on. I’m trying to do better, and that’s all I can do. I’m trying to work on things in practice, and unfortunately right now it’s not translating how I’d like to.”
One of Gauff’s biggest problems in recent months has been her second serve. The world No. 3 has been trying to make adjustments off the court but the tweaks have yet to fully pay off on the match court.
“I think it’s all connected. We kind of changed a lot of things with the serve. I don’t want to get into specifics of it, but yeah, I mean, I went on the practice court after the first day and then after the other day,” she added.
“You know, I still think I could have served better. Was obviously more consistent, but definitely want to get more aggressive with it. It was kind of one of those things where I started the tournament not serving well, so it’s more so just trying to get it in.
“I hit some good serves today, but I feel like especially in that last game, up 40-0, I probably could have went bigger in those moments. But yeah, it is an improvement, and hopefully can continue to do better from here.”
Bencic later addressed the crucial 4-4 game in the final set, branding it a “turning point” and admitting Gauff felt “tense” despite leading 40-0.
“I felt like she was more tense, so I felt like that was the right time to go for her forehand,” the world No. 58 said.
“Obviously, like, it’s difficult to all the time go at one side, because I feel like if someone is not so confident on one side, the worse you can do is give them rhythm.”
