Coco Gauff is enjoying the most successful run of her career under coach Brad Gilbert, and he spoke about how it looks behind the scenes.
For much of her career, Gauff’s constant in life had been her father, Corey. He got his daughter into the sport and helped her take her first steps, sort of like what Richard Williams did for his daughters, Serena and Venus.
He followed his example, and it worked out pretty well. With time, other coaches stepped up, and she worked with some notable names like Patrick Mouratoglou
In recent months, it’s been veteran coach Brad Gilbert, and it’s been the most successful run of her career. She won her maiden Grand Slam trophy under him and became one of the best players in the world.
In a recent Vogue feature on Gauff, Gilbert discussed some of the things that changed when he became her coach.
“The way she had been coached was, they wanted her to be a power player. They wanted her to go through people. I didn’t see it that way. Coco definitely shares a big-time trait with Andre in that she’s a perfectionist. Crazy perfectionist. That’s probably the thing from early on I noticed instantly. And I told her, ‘The pursuit of perfection doesn’t exist. It makes you miserable, chasing it.”
“And you’re never satisfied with being good.’ She’s just always gotta be better. Andre was the same. And it’s like, ‘You only gotta be better than the lady on the other side of the net.’ That’s it. This whole being-better-than-you-need-to-be costs you a lot of matches.””
That’s a very interesting perspective from Gilbert. She did start to be really aggressive under Pere Riba but toned that down in recent weeks to more of a middle ground. It’s been somewhat of a shaky stretch, but she’s still one of the best in the world and just needs to keep working and improving as a player.
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