Coco Gauff will play her US Open second round match later today, with Donna Vekic a stern test for so early in the competition.
However, her first-round opponent was hardly much easier, forced to scrape through a three-hour-long battle with Ajla Tomljanović.
It has been a really tough start for the top-ranked American, who has arrived in New York with the world upon her shoulders.
And now, two pundits have suggested it might all be proving too much for her.
Coco Gauff’s demeanour questioned after US Open first-round match
Context is key with these comments, made by David Law and Catherine Whitaker on The Tennis Podcast.
After all, they reference Gauff’s decision to change her coaching team on the eve of the US Open often, parting ways with Matt Daly in favour of Gavin MacMillan, the biomechanics coach famed for fixing Aryna Sabalenka’s serve.
Law began by reviewing her first-round win: “That is probably just not the tennis she wants to be playing, but it is a way to get herself into rallies without clocking up double faults. I mean, as you said, 10 in the match, but over three hours, I mean, she’s been putting not far off 10 in sets at times, sometimes more than that on really bad days.
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“And her baseline game is still absolutely world-class. Yes, there is a forehand issue at times, but yeah, she was sustaining forehand exchanges against a player really going after her forehand and trying to break it down, and for the most part, it was standing up.
“So I guess the view is, well, make sure you get into rallies, because you’re still a brilliant baseliner. But to have to go three hours with not one of the very best players and only just squeak it out and having made such a fundamental overhaul of her backroom staff in the week before the US Open because of a specific issue, and, like, the most important shot in the game in many ways.
“She wasn’t trying to hide the stress she was feeling in that interview on court. I felt for her. This has clearly been a lot. She’s exhausted already, mentally.”
Whitaker then added: “The immediate aftermath of the match was fascinating, I thought, because she celebrated like she’d won the US Open. That was the Coco Gauff we know, and it was a very dramatic match point, wasn’t it? And obviously it felt right on a knife-edge, right up until the very last moment.
“She’d already tried and failed to serve out the match, went back to 5-5, she broke again and had a second bite of the cherry which she did eventually take, but it really was in the balance right up until the very end and she roared, you know, huge, huge moment when she when she leaped into the air. It was a huge moment.
“And then so quickly, she looked sad. Like, in that on-court interview, good questions, you know, the crowd were with her, the crowd were into it.
“She looked concerned and sad, very, very quickly, and you saw some backstage images of her getting onto the exercise bike in the gym, where she seemed to continue to look pretty sad.”
Law then finished by praising Gauff’s openness, but also outlining how he feels when listening to her downbeat interviews: “Yeah, she’s made it very clear in all the interviews we’ve done with her over the years in press conferences, we’ve seen her after a lot of sad defeats, and she doesn’t hide how much it means to her.
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“I just think her performances and her success and her career, you know, she puts such a lot into it, and she’s at kind of one of the biggest tournaments in the world for her, maybe the biggest, and certainly the one that she won two years ago, and everybody’s looking at her and she’s come out here and she’s tinkering in this manner with her game, and she obviously, just hates that feeling.
“That’s what it feels like when you listen to her.”
Coco Gauff knows she has taken a big risk at this year’s US Open
Whilst the errors were once again prevalent, this is not a phenomenon that is new, or will have surprised Gauff.
In fact, in making the decision to revamp her entire coaching staff ahead of the US Open and bring in MacMillan to transform her serve, she would have known what was to come.
Coco Gauff’s head-to-head record vs Donna Vekic
It’s a hugely risky and experimental decision, and throws her ability to compete for the title completely in doubt.
Clearly, this was a decision the 21-year-old was comfortable with.
However, as she said when justifying it, she does not like to lose at any event, whether it be a 250 or a Grand Slam. So, to be performing below expectations and misfiring from the forehand and serve again, is bound to draw frustration.
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There is so much pressure on this young girl’s shoulders, and she has made such a bold move right on the eve of the US Open.
Gauff knows the risks involved and therefore cannot be too frustrated if it results in a shock early exit.