By Richard Pagliaro | @Tennis_Now | Monday, March 24, 2025

A net-cord shot sat up offering offensive opportunity for Coco Gauff.

Dashing up to the ball, Gauff swatted a flat forehand that tripped on the top of the tape and stumbled wide, putting her in a break-point bind.

That sequence summed up a murky afternoon of frustration for the Delray Beach baseliner.

The third seed generated chances but stumbled through stress and crashed out of the Miami Open.



Mixing her speeds and spins, 33-year-old Magda Linette shocked Gauff 6-4, 6-4 to advance to the Miami Open quarterfinals.

World No. 34 Linette scored her sixth career Top 10 win.



On return, Linette encroached space inside the baseline rattling Gauff’s serve.

A jittery Gauff served just 50 percent and clanked 12 double faults winning just 11 of 32 second-serve points.

Credit Linette for not only adopting an aggressive return position, but for pulverizing some timely returns down the line as well.

"I think it was really important for me to keep pressing Coco's serve to make sure she feels the pressure," Linette told the media in Miami. "I'm glad that I was returning well.

"I was really brave. Then I was able to back it up with pretty solid service games because she's really tough. Still when you manage to break her serve, she's still so tough. She's competing so well. That was really important to back it up."

It’s another puzzling departure for Gauff, the youngest American woman to reach back-to-back Miami round-of-16s since the legendary Serena Williams in 2001-2002.

Yet the Hard Rock fourth round continues to be a hurdle too high for Gauff, who has fallen to Caroline Garcia and Iga Swiatek in her prior round-of-16 matches.

Afterward, Linette said the fact that Gauff plays on the game's biggest stages and largest stadiums means when her serve does go askew, it feels magnified. 

"Even on the bad days, she's so tough because she can just compete so well," Linette said of Gauff. "Obviously you get your chances, but still you have to work so hard for every single point, every single game. Especially that, okay, she does double faults, but then she comes back and returns really well, so that was important.

"Because Coco is always on the biggest courts. Everybody show her matches, so you kind of see when she has a little bit weaker days.

"You can see her serve is sometimes vulnerable to do double faults. I think that's something you know and you try to get a chance when you can because you might not get another chance."



Manic Monday was Mauling Monday for American women.

A cloud-covered sky shrouded bright hopes for the home side as five American women reached the round of 16.

Defending champion Danielle Collins, Gauff, Doha champion Amanda Anisimova and 20-year-old Ashlyn Krueger all fell to dangerous opponents.

Only US Open finalist Jessica Pegula was still flying the American flag.



Pegula powered through five games in a row defeating Marta Kostyuk 6-2, 6-3 to advance to the Miami quarterfinals.

The fourth-seeded Pegula controlled the center of the court to spark her second-set comeback and create a blockbuster quarterfinal.

Former US Open champion Emma Raducanu, who has been resurgent in South Florida working with Tennis Channel analyst and coach Mark Petchey, will face US Open finalist Pegula for a semifinal spot.

Raducanu and Pegula have split two career meetings with the American winning their only hard court clash at Cincinnati in 2022.

Earlier, Raducanu repelled American Amanda Anisimova 6-1, 6-3.

The 17th-seeded Anisimova was coming off her dramatic and combustible 7-6(5), 2-6, 6-3 conquest of 17-year-old sensation Mirra Andreeva that snapped the Dubai and Indian Wells champion’s 13-match winning streak.

A depleted Anisimova could not cope with the athletic Raducanu, who applied an all-court attack to wrap up a 68-minute win predicated on the Briton’s sharp serving and the American’s fatigue. Raducanu served 77 percent, won 77 percent of her first-serve points and face only one break point in an impressive 68-minute victory.

The 2021 US Open champion continues to bring her best on North American soil. Raducanu has been an American assassin in Miami. The 60th-ranked Briton beat US Open semifinalist Emma Navarro 7-6, 2-6, 7-6 and McCartney Kessler yesterday before sending off Anisimova today.



A player on the rise, Krueger fell to Olympic gold-medal champion Zheng Qinwen 6-2, 7-6(3) in a physical test. It came after Krueger knocked former Wimbledon winner Elena Rybakina and former US Open finalist Leylah Fernandez out in succession.

Zheng won 26 of 32 first-serve points against Krueger today and will need to summon similar serve strength when she faces world No. 1 Sabalenka in the quarterfinals. Sabalenka is 5-0 lifetime vs. Zheng.

WTA Finals champion Gauff had arguably the highest hopes of any American woman as the day began but her career long struggles at her home WTA 1000 continue.

Perhaps it's the pressure of wanting so badly to perform in front of family and friends in South Florida or the fact she’s in the process of making some grip adjustments , but Miami and Madrid are the only WTA 1000 events where Gauff has yet to reach at least the quarterfinals.

That’s head scratching because you’d think her heavy topspin forehand would elicit a trampoline bounce in Madrid’s higher altitude. Miami is her home WTA 1000 where Gauff looked like the Slam champion she is shredding Sofia Kenin in a 47-minute double bagel beat down to open the event before sending former Top 10 player Maria Sakkari packing in 76 minutes.

Today, Gauff looked like she was playing with a disconnect between intent and action.

At crunch time, there wasn’t clarity.

Remember, Gauff just celebrated her 21st birthday earlier this month and her game is still very much a work in progress as is the game of any elite 21 year old.

Give Gauff credit for actually trying to do what so many have said she needs to do: try to modify her extreme western forehand grip, which limits her on the low ball. You notice—and certainly opponents do—that Gauff tends to shovel back forehand slices when confronted with short low balls.

There’s nothing wrong with the forehand slice, in fact, it can be effective. The issue is elite players are much more likely to pounce on the short ball and hammer a deep reply. Gauff tends to brush up on the ball on her forehand rather than driving through it so you can understand why she’d want to at least try to move the grip more toward semi-western.

A frustrating part of the process is you can assert some of Gauff’s forehand issues are more because she tends to strike from an open stance it is sometimes hitting it off the back foot or falling off the ball. Whereas on her backhand, Gauff steps into the shot, gets her body weight behind the ball and gets tremendous hip and shoulder turn.

Stroke production aside, the challenge for the 21-year-old Gauff is a simple and profound one: What is her playing identity?

Does Gauff want to bang big first serves and try to play offensive, attacking baseline tennis as Sabalenka, Swiatek, Keys and Rybakina do? Or is Gauff more comfortable trying to forsake pace for placement on serve, become a high-percentage first serve and rely on her athleticism and coverage to play the angles?

Right now, the quandary is even playing at home, Gauff looks uncertain on her direction.