By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Saturday March 9, 2025
Indian Wells, California – Coco Gauff poured in 21 double faults and 74 unforced errors on Saturday against Japan’s Moyuka Uchijima, but still managed to come away with a hard-fought victory. Rather than hang her head, the 20-year-old is taking whatever positive she can get from the two hour and 33-minute victory, in the hopes that she can use her first win since the Australian Open as a springboard to a run at the BNP Paribas Open.
Gauff says she felt pretty confident in her groundstrokes, it was just her second-serve that plagued her.
“Off the ground I felt pretty good, honestly. I think if I just double-faulted less it could have probably been a straight-set match,” said Gauff, who won just 11 of 44 second-serve points but actually 11 of the 23 second-serve points when she actually made the serve. “I felt off the ground I was dictating more of the rallies.
“Coming off a tough couple back-to-back losses, I guess it's just taking it more as a positive maybe than if I had a couple good weeks last two tournaments.”
Gauff, who will face Maria Sakkari in the third round, in a rematch of their semifinal last year, is learning not to take any one result too seriously. It’s all a part of the maturation process for the 20-year-old.
“I think just accepting the highs and lows,” she said. “I think sometimes in sports you want to just stay on the high and kind of ride that wave, but especially with this sport, a season as long as tennis, it's kind of impossible to always be on that high wave, and there's going to be some low moments I think. Just trying to stick through those tough moments and get better through them.” Most important, perhaps, is Gauff’s love for the sport and desire to continue to improve.
“I get older, honestly I feel like I love the sport more than when I was 17, 18, just because I felt more pressure then because of how I just came and started,” she said, adding: “I think just today is just one of those days where I just did not feel great on the court and because of the last couple of weeks, I'm pretty hard on myself. I just wanted to do better.”