Coco Gauff explains change she noticed in rival play after she became top player

Coco Gauff says she is definitely feeling now that rivals have that extra motivation when they face her but underlines that she is not looking at it negatively but rather as something that can only make her a better player.

After becoming a Grand Slam champion and reaching the world No. 2 ranking over the last 11 months, 20-year-old Gauff is now widely considered one of the top players in the game. But that has also come with a price as the 2023 US Open champion sees that she now has a target on her back.

The most recent case of that happened on Thursday in Toronto, where world No. 72 Wang Yafan put up a very hard fight and resistance before Gauff completed a 6-4 6-4 win. While Gauff has been pretty consistent throughout 2024, she did pick up back-to-back round-of-16 surprise losses in her last two tournaments – she lost to Emma Navarro at Wimbledon and Donna Vekic at the Paris Olympics, respectively.

“Yeah, it’s definitely difficult. I feel like a lot of times people play their best tennis against the higher-ranked players, and that’s just because they have nothing to lose, so it’s definitely a difference. Yeah, but I think overall it just makes me better. If everybody’s playing me at their high level it can only make me better,” Gauff said.

How Gauff felt about her play versus Wang?
Early in the first set, Gauff saved three break points before getting the first break in the fourth game. But Wang refused to quit and she managed to get the break back in the seventh game. However, the top-seeded American still won the first set after breaking Wang in the 10th game – the game in which the Chinese was serving to stay in the first set.

In the second set, something similar happened as Gauff blew an early break before breaking Wang in the 10th game to complete her win.

“I think overall I was playing the right way. I think I just made some errors, which was expected today, it’s only my fourth day on hard court or, yeah, I took some time off after, well, two days off (laughing), some time, not a lot, two days off after Olympics,” Gauff reflected.