In a startling and candid commentary, former world No. 9 Andrea Petkovic delivered what she called her “hot take” on the recent serving struggles of rising superstar Coco Gauff — and it’s raising eyebrows across the tennis world. Petkovic believes that Gauff’s serve isn’t faltering because of pressure, but because she’s slipped back into old habits after making changes. Tennis365+2thetennisgazette.com+2
Here’s a breakdown of Petkovic’s theory and what it could mean for Gauff’s season.
🔍 What Petkovic Claims
Petkovic suggests that when Gauff hired serve specialist Matt Daly, part of the work was changing her grip on the serve — something that appeared to improve for a stretch. “My theory is, when you change a grip, with time, if you don’t remember it all the time… you’ll revert to the old grip,” Petkovic said. thetennisgazette.com+1
She points to statistics: Gauff was almost fault-free in the final tournaments of the previous season and early on this year — one or two double faults per match. But in recent events, that figure skyrocketed. Petkovic cited Gauff’s 22 double faults in one Indian Wells match and 12 against Magda Linette in Miami. Tennis365+1
Technically, Petkovic says the issue isn’t mental stress or fatigue — it’s that the serve joint “chain-reaction” from grip to toss to motion is mis-firing. For example: if the toss is too far forward, it becomes harder to execute a clean kick or slice serve — and then the ball flies long or lands in the net. thetennisgazette.com
