Coco Gauff has thrown out the mental playbook that comes with being a defending champion, declaring she’s done with the pressure of trying to “defend, defend” as she looks to retain her French \u200bOpen title.<\/p>\n
With Aryna Sabalenka arriving at the tournament under an injury cloud and Iga Swiatek no \u200clonger as dominant on clay as she once was, Gauff is among the favourites to win once again in Paris.<\/p>\n
The world number four, who beat Sabalenka in last year’s Roland Garros final to win her second Grand Slam title, said she had \u200blearned a vital lesson from her previous attempt at defending a major, when she was eliminated from \u200bthe 2024 United States (US) Open in the fourth round.<\/p>\n
“I realise that the defending means nothing \u2060in a way. Each year is a new opportunity and new chance for anyone to win. Obviously I \u200bhope it’s me,” she told reporters at this month’s Italian Open.<\/p>\n
“I don’t really look at it as defending anymore. \u200bI guess at the US Open I was like, ‘I need to defend, defend’ I say now ‘it’s just another tournament’.<\/p>\n
“I won it last year. I’ll try again to do it this year. I’m not going to be able to defend every year. I’m \u200bnot Rafa (Nadal). Maybe one day!”
\nGauff’s preparations for the French Open have not been ideal and \u200bshe was forced to contend with a virus as well as a fourth-round loss in Madrid, before bouncing back to reach \u200ca second \u2060straight Italian Open final.<\/p>\n
In the final, Gauff racked up seven double faults and was beaten by Elina Svitolina.<\/p>\n
However, she believes she has finally cracked the code on her serve issues, which saw her leading the WTA Tour for double faults in both 2024 and 2025 and enlisting biomechanics specialist Gavin MacMillan last year to address \u200bthe problem.<\/p>\n
While she once again \u200bfinds herself at the \u2060top of that list for double faults in 2026, she committed just one in each of her wins over Sorana Cirstea and Iva Jovic in Rome, an improvement \u200bshe credited to a newfound stability in her second serve.<\/p>\n
“It’s been an up-and-down process. \u200bI obviously \u2060don’t want to jinx anything, but I think we found the recipe to making it more consistent,” Gauff said.<\/p>\n
“Now it’s focusing on how to make it more of a weapon, how to serve smarter. I’m tossing a bit more \u2060consistent. My \u200bweight I feel is a little bit better. Also just the \u200btrust, the confidence in it is a lot better.”<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":27677,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-35154","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"In the final, Gauff racked up seven double faults and was beaten by Elina Svitolina.","published_date":"","news_description":"In the final, Gauff racked up seven double faults and was beaten by Elina Svitolina.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/35154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/35154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35155,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/35154\/revisions\/35155"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=35154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}