Coco Gauff overcomes serve struggles to beat Danielle Collins at Canadian Open

New York Times

5 days ago

It's not often that the world No. 2 goes two months without winning a match, but that's the reality Coco Gauff was facing late Tuesday night in Montreal, on the cusp of a third consecutive loss, this time in her opening duel at the Canadian Open.
Gauff somehow won the battle of fiercely competitive Floridians, beating Danielle Collins 7-5, 4-6, 7-6(2). For Gauff, this win was a maddening relief on a night when she served 23 double faults, nearly a full set given away in just under three hours. It's the most served in a match on the WTA Tour since 2019, when Jelena Ostapenko hit 25 against Karolína Plíšková in a win at the China Open in Beijing.
Gauff last won a match in the final of the French Open, where she showed off all of her strongest traits — her stamina, her steel, her wheels and her ability to stay in control and keep putting balls back into the court — to upset Aryna Sabalenka. Gauff was on top of the world.
Instead of staying in Europe, as she often does after Roland Garros, she jetted home for a whirlwind few days of media appearances, then headed back to Europe for the grass-court season. She has not been the same since.
She lost to Wang Xinyu in Berlin in straight sets. Then she lost to Dayana Yastremska in the first round of Wimbledon in straight sets as well. That was July 1. She spent the rest of the month resting and preparing for the North American hard-court swing that will culminate with the U.S. Open.
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Judging from her win over Collins, Gauff has a lot more work to do, especially on her serve. It's tough to beat anyone on the WTA Tour serving that poorly. It's nearly impossible against Collins, a big hitter who knows how to take advantage of a tentative foe struggling with the one shot no one can hide from.
Collins kept reeling in Gauff all night. Gauff was up 5-2 in the first set before Collins drew even, only to let Gauff edge her out down the stretch. Then Gauff broke Collins early in the second and third sets, only for Collins to storm back each time, using her power to rush Gauff into errors. Gauff was up 4-2 in the third set, within shouting distance of the finish line.
Double fault. Forehand error. Backhand error. Backhand error. And Collins was back in business.
Gauff was supposed to have begun putting her serve issues in the rearview mirror last year when she hired Matt Daly, a grip specialist, who tweaked the way she held the racket. The double faults went down for a few months, only to creep back into her game and come out at some seriously inopportune moments.
Still, Gauff was able to stage an extraordinary clay season, making two finals and winning her second Grand Slam. But that was on clay, where she could find an extra split second to catch up with returns on the slow red dirt. Hard courts are a different story. She needs to serve effectively to win, like just about everyone else.
Even with all the troubles, Gauff was 2 points from the win with Collins serving at 4-5 in the third set, but Collins came up with enough power to induce the misses from Gauff. Collins got what looked like the decisive break with plenty of help from Gauff, who started the next game with two double faults, then plunked in soft balls on the next 3 points to allow Collins to hammer returns through the court.
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Gauff, who never stops competing, even when her serve tells her she probably should, evened the match a final time on her fourth break-point chance of the game, rolling a short backhand through the court. Then came the deciding tiebreak. Gauff was 10-2 in deciding tiebreaks. Collins was 3-6 and played like it, sending a short backhand long and double-faulting to give Gauff a 4-2 lead.
And then, somehow, Gauff finished the business in the most surprising way. She hammered a serve to get to 6-2 and smacked an ace to end it. She let out a scream.
'Making serves in the court was the toughest challenge,' she said. 'Maybe if I had cut that in half, it could have been a quicker match.'
Quicker and cleaner. A win is a win, though.