2023 was by far the best year on the WTA Tour for American sensation Coco Gauff. At just 19, she not only managed to lay her hands on the US Open title but also stunned everyone with her incredible gameplay. Despite getting up the ranks and making a bold announcement in tennis, Serena Williams‘ childhood coach seems to have identified a problem that is stopping her from achieving her true potential.
In an exclusive interview, Rick Macci came ahead and talked about the key challenge that Coco Gauff is facing while suggesting some ways that he would use to improve it. This news comes after there are potential rumors of a possible partnership between the two.
Rick Macci points out Coco Gauff’s key challenge post-rumored collaboration
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Months after speculation going around their partnership, Rick Macci, in an exclusive ES Fancast interview, highlighted a crucial hurdle in Coco Gauff’s game. Macci talked about Gauff’s physicality, noting her longer arms and wiry athleticism can complicate the mechanics of her natural game. He described the challenges of coordinating various moving parts due to her exceptional athleticism, which is advantageous but poses complexities in biomechanics.
He further went ahead to add that Coco might sometimes struggle to stay balanced and connected while playing because of her athleticism. Even though she’s quick to recover from mistakes, he hinted that players who aren’t as fast might face fewer issues.
“Remember her arms are a little longer. She’s a great athlete, she’s wiry you know so there it’s a complicated thing because you’re so athletic and there are a lot of moving parts you know so that happens. She’s not biomechanically connected from the ground up but when you’re confident you move forward a little bit you know uh even if she hits a bad shot she has enough makeup speed that she can save the day,” said Macci in the interview.
However, he went ahead to add some major problems that the players today come up with, the problem of not wanting to undergo a change. While suggesting that it is important to find the right person to work with, he said that there are players who are winning tournaments or matches so they think that there is no need to bring the change. He further went ahead to add that in Gauff’s case, it is a little wobble.
“They’ve done stuff since age six you know and maybe the mechanics aren’t uh where they could be and a lot of people don’t want to change because they’ve done it for so long and like you said if you’re having some success and you’re making a great living or you win the tournament or whatever um you don’t really want to change things but in her situation, there is a little wobble there okay,” said Macci while highlighting the main issue that Gauff is currently dealing with.
Thus, in the latest interview, Rick Macci came ahead and suggested one main problem that Coco Gauff is currently dealing with. While the rumors of their potential partnership gain fire, it will be interesting to see if they both join hands together or not.
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While going ahead in the interview, he even talked about how he would help her cope with the problem so that she would dominate the game in an even better way.
Macci suggests ways on how he would help Coco Gauff solve the problem
Going ahead in the interview, Macci came and suggested a few ways that he would probably use to deal with her major problems. He suggested that he would show her the ATP forehand while suggesting that it is a completely different story there. However, he went ahead to add that it would not be easy at all because of her muscle memory that has been habitual of the way she has been hitting her forehands.
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Not only this, he also suggested that out of the three major components, forehand, backhand, or serve, if there’s a bump in any, you can bubble up under pressure and he would be looking to help her change that so she could camouflage anything and be the best version of herself.
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