Posted by Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Sunday September 29, 2024
After breaking up with Brad Gilbert after a 14-month partnership that produced her top-rated girlfriend, Coco Gauff strengthened his team, added Denis Shapovalov’s coach Matt Daly.
Gauff, who reached the round of 16 in Beijing on Sunday and is now 2-0 with Daly as his head coach, says he hopes to continue the partnership through the end of the season until 2025. The 20-year-old American player also continues his relationship with a long-time coach Jean-Christophe Faurel.
Daly, 45, played college tennis at Notre Dame, and graduated from South Bend in 2001. He reached 941 in the ATP rankings in 2003.
Daly co-founded Grip MD with Mark Merklein (Jessica Pegula’s current trainer). According to Facebook he specializes in helping athletes make grip changes: “Since graduating, Matt has been coaching juniors and seniors for twenty years, specializing in technique and grip changes. Matt has also worked with many of the top 100 ATP players on grip changes. ”
Gauff Targets Improved Serve
The No.1 is focused on sixth-ranked Gauff to boost the workload that plagued him during the defense of his US Open title. The American player came out on top when she lost in the fourth round to Emma Navarro as she was thrown 19 errors in her second consecutive loss to her opponent.
“There are other parts of my game that I want to work on, but the focus right now is performance,” Gauff told WTA Insider Courtney Nguyen this week. “When I work well, I play very well. For me, that is the basis of my game.”
Gauff says the changes will be subtle, rather than drastic.
“Right now, the little we have done has improved a lot from where I was three weeks ago,” he said. “Right now, there’s no crazy amount, like going through all the strategy changes or resetting everything. It’s the subtle things that will help me, doing them for a week now.”
Gauff will face either Naomi Osaka or Katie Volynets in the round of 16 in Beijing.
