Coco Gauff worked on serve with Andy Roddick during off-season

The American spent time with one or the best servers in men’s tennis history during the offseason, with the goal of making her serve even more lethal in mind.

Coco Gauff at the 2023 WTA Finals

Chris Oddo

January 15, 2024

Coco Gauff did not rest on her laurels this off-season. With her maiden Grand Slam title in tow, it would have been easy for Gauff to assume that her game was right where it needed to be to have success against the WTA’s best.

But Gauff and her team took heed of the old axiom: if you are not moving forward you are moving backwards. The American went through the process of upgrading her serve, and even brought in Hall of Fame American Andy Roddick to help her simplify the stroke, and add a little more pop.

Tennis Majors

After Gauff raced through the last nine games of her 6-3, 6-0 victory over Anna Karolina Schmiedlova, the 19-year-old talked about her brief time spent with the American who was known for his rocket serve.

“It was really cool,” she told reporters. “He’s a really chill guy. I met him before but never, obviously, to that level. I went to Charlotte for two days. It was a really good two days. I think that my serve has improved.”

Gauff didn’t say specifically what she and Roddick worked on, but she did talk about simplifying her service toss last week.

Coco Gauff worked with @andyroddick on her serve in the off-season.

The results of that are on display now 🎯@cocogauff • #AusOpen • #AO2024 @wwos • @espn • @eurosport • @wowowtennis pic.twitter.com/WYgWyEG1qk
— #AusOpen (@AustralianOpen) January 15, 2024

Yesterday, while working on ESPN, Gauff’s coach Brad Gilbert talked about bringing Andy in to help. Gilbert was Roddick’s coach when the American won his lone Grand Slam, at the US Open in 2023.

“I coached Andy at a young age. He’s got an amazing serve. And I was thinking, ‘What a great person to take a look at Coco’s serve,'” Gilbert said, according to tennis journalist Erik Gudris. “It’s kind of full circle. When I coached Andy, I was his age now. Andy was like Coco’s age. It was a great two days. Really helped things out, simplified Coco’s motion, abbreviated a little bit.”

Last week in Auckland, Gauff talked about the changes she has made to her service toss, which she says were relatively easy to incorporate.

“I think for me, it was a very small change,” Gauff said. “It only took me, like, two days to get – maybe three – to get really comfortable with it. It was just to make the toss more consistent. Instead of throwing from so low to start up higher to make the toss more consistent.

“Sometimes I still have to remind myself of it. I think for the most part I was really open to it. I think my serve is something that when it’s on, it’s a really big weapon and can get me out of some situations. Just to make it more consistent was the goal.”

Working with Roddick was a no-brainer for Gauff. The guy pumped in 9,074 aces over the course of his excellent career after all.

“He’s probably, you know, one of the best servers in history, and especially on the American side,” Gauff said. “I don’t think I could have chosen anybody — or actually, I didn’t really choose, he offered. So I don’t think I could have gotten anybody else better to kind of help me with that.”