Analytics & Stats Player News US Open
Gauff exits US Open with optimism after radical serve overhaul
Gauff leaves the US Open hopeful after a service overhaul, eyeing steady improvement ahead. 2025 now
Coco Gauff left the 2025 US Open with mixed emotions: bruised after a loss to Naomi Osaka but upbeat about the work she has started on her serve. Observers had noted a sombre demeanour during parts of her run in New York, yet Gauff framed the week as part of a broader process.
The changes began after a difficult 2024 North American hard-court swing. She parted ways with Brad Gilbert and joined Matt Daly last September, a partnership that produced immediate results: she won the China Open and finished the year with the season-ending WTA Finals trophy. Her form carried into 2025 with a second major at Roland Garros and runner-up finishes at the Madrid Open and Italian Open, but she acknowledged a persistent weakness in her serve.
When Gavin MacMillan became available after the Cincinnati Open, Gauff made another significant switch. She and MacMillan focused on biomechanics and decided to change her entire service motion. That overhaul left the build-up to the US Open difficult; she described shoulder pain after practice but accepted the short-term discomfort.
A testing three-set win over Ajla Tomljanovic opened her campaign. There were tears during and after a two-set victory over Donna Vekic, and she dropped only four games against Magdalena Fręch in the third round before the defeat to Osaka. After the Fręch match she admitted she “broke down.”
She detailed the emotional swing: “I think that trying to be more positive after the match, I was really disappointed,” she admitted. “Kind of broke down to my team and then hearing their perspectives and everything, it definitely is a lot of positive things.
“If I think if I kept the way I was going in Cincinnati to here, I would have been out the first round. And so I think that where my serve started from the start of the tournament to today was a big improvement. And I feel like now I just have to get everything to work together. But, yeah, I knew going in it was going to be a tough tournament for me.”
Statistically there are signs of progress: she served 320 double faults before the US Open, added 23 in her first three matches in New York and five more against Osaka. “My goal going into the tournament this year was not to lose the same way that I lost last year. And I don’t remember how many doubles I hit in my match against Emma, but it was definitely in the double digits, so I didn’t do that today,” she said.
At 21 she already owns 10 WTA Tour singles titles, including two Grand Slams, a WTA Finals trophy and two WTA 1000 titles, and she has peaked at No 2. With older rivals such as Aryna Sabalenka, 27, and Iga Swiatek, 24, she sees room to grow: “So I think for me, it just gets me excited to realise if I have, like, four more years of just working as hard as I am right now and actually doing the right things, like where my game could be.”
Analytics & Stats Player News WTA
Anisimova Enters WTA Top 3 and Becomes the New American No. 1
Amanda Anisimova rises to No. 3 in the WTA rankings and becomes the top American player. ©Prange2025
Amanda Anisimova rises to a career-high No. 3 in the latest WTA rankings, marking her first appearance inside the Top 3 and establishing her as the top-ranked American player. She moves up from No. 4 while Coco Gauff drops from No. 3 to No. 4, a swap driven by this week’s points adjustments.
There were no tournaments last week, but points from Week 1 of 2025 have dropped off the rankings. Anisimova remains on 6,287 ranking points. Gauff’s total falls from 6,763 to 6,273 after last year’s United Cup results are removed. The net effect places Anisimova ahead of Gauff and makes her the highest-ranked American on either the ATP or WTA lists; Gauff is now the second-highest-ranked American.
Anisimova’s climb carries additional historical notes. She becomes just the third player born in the 2000s to reach the Top 3 in WTA history, and the fifth player born in that decade to achieve a Top 3 ranking across either the WTA or ATP. She is also the 15th American woman to reach the Top 3 since WTA rankings began in 1975. For context, 11 American men have reached the Top 3 since ATP rankings were introduced in 1973.
Other notable ranking changes this week include Linda Noskova moving from No. 13 to a personal best of No. 12. Clara Tauson slips from No. 12 to No. 14; Noskova lost her second match in Brisbane a year ago while Tauson won the Auckland title at the same time last season. Cristina Bucsa makes her Top 50 debut, rising from No. 51 to No. 50. Anastasia Potapova drops from No. 50 to No. 55; Bucsa lost in the first round in Brisbane last year while Potapova reached the third round.
© 2025 Robert Prange
Analytics & Stats Player News WTA
Hsieh Su-wei at 40: Four decades distilled into 40 defining numbers
Hsieh Su-wei turns 40: 40 milestones from No. 1 doubles weeks to Grand Slam and tour titles. Today!
Hsieh Su-wei celebrates her 40th birthday with a resume few peers can match. A concise selection of career milestones captures the arc of a player who has excelled in doubles, enjoyed late-career singles highlights and returned to the tour with sustained success.
She first reached No. 1 in doubles on May 12, 2014, becoming the first Taiwanese player to reach the top spot in tennis in either women’s or men’s, singles or doubles. She claimed two Grand Slam mixed doubles titles at the Australian Open and Wimbledon in 2024 alongside Jan Zielinski; those were their first and third tournaments together. Her three WTA singles titles came in 2012 (Kuala Lumpur and Guangzhou) and 2018 (Hiroshima).
Hsieh has won Grand Slam women’s doubles titles with four different partners: two with Peng Shuai, and one each with Barbora Strycova, Elise Mertens and Wang Xinyu. She has five Wimbledon titles, including four in women’s doubles (2013 with Peng, 2019 with Strycova, 2021 with Mertens and 2023 with Strycova) and one mixed in 2024 with Zielinski.
Her WTA Finals record features six appearances and a title in 2013 with Peng; she reached the semifinals in 2025 with Jelena Ostapenko. Across Grand Slams she owns seven women’s doubles majors, plus two mixed doubles majors. Indian Wells stands out among her 13 WTA 1000 doubles titles, winning it four times in 2014 (with Peng), 2018 (with Strycova), 2021 and 2014 (with Mertens).
Other highlights: she has 36 doubles wins in 2025 (36-18), 37 career tour-level doubles titles (35 women’s, two mixed), and 40 career tour-level titles overall (three singles, 35 women’s doubles and two mixed). She spent 59 weeks at No. 1 in doubles and is one of only 18 women to log 50 or more weeks at the top. Her Top 10 and Top 15 singles victories mostly arrived in her 30s, including her first Top 10 singles win at Roland Garros in 2017 and a landmark win over reigning No. 1 Simona Halep at Wimbledon in 2018.
Early markers include a perfect 30-0 start below tour level at 15 in 2001 and her first Grand Slam doubles title at Wimbledon in 2013. She retired from singles in 2024 after Miami. Hsieh is the top seed in doubles in Brisbane this week alongside Jelena Ostapenko.
Analytics & Stats ATP Player News
Alcaraz Tops 2025 ATP Earnings List and Clears $60 Million in Career Prize Money
Alcaraz tops 2025 ATP prize money with over $21 million and passes $60 million career total. Update
The ATP’s final prize money standings for 2025 confirm a season dominated by Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner. Alcaraz led the tour with more than $21 million in prize money for the year, while Sinner followed with north of $19 million. World No. 3 Alexander Zverev ranked third on the list with $7.5 million.
Alcaraz’s 2025 total is the second-highest single-season haul in ATP history, behind only Novak Djokovic’s 2015 figure. Sinner’s earnings for 2025 also produced a milestone: he became the first player to exceed $19 million in a season and the first to top $16 million in two different seasons.
Beyond the single-season figures, Alcaraz’s 2025 earnings pushed his career prize money past $60 million. That achievement marks him as the first player, male or female, born since 2000 to reach that level. The draft also notes that he is the first player born since 1988 to pass the $60 million mark.
The final prize money leaderboard underlines the financial gap at the very top of men’s tennis in 2025, with the two leading players combining for the bulk of top-year payouts. The published top-10 list for 2025 places Alcaraz and Sinner well clear of the next tier, with Zverev as the highest earner after them.
These numbers frame a season in which prize money concentrated at the top for a small group of players. Alcaraz’s performance in 2025 not only reinforced his place as the year’s top earner but also cemented a rapid climb in career earnings, while Sinner’s consistency produced an unprecedented dual-season benchmark in annual pay.
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