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.”

Naomi Osaka defeated Coco Gauff 6-3, 6-2 at the US Open, a result that prompted blunt assessment from Tim Henman about Gauff’s current state. Osaka dominated her service games, losing just six points on serve in the entire match. Gauff’s campaign at the event ended in straight sets.

Gauff struggled with a fragile serve and inconsistent groundstrokes while committing 33 unforced errors, a combination that left little chance against an opponent playing with clarity. Her body language during the match suggested she lacked belief she could compete with Osaka.

Henman was direct in his diagnosis. “When you talk about someone being in the zone, that’s when you’ve got that really clear mindset and Osaka had that,” Henman told Sky Sports.

“When you think about the other end of the court with Gauff it just looks like she’s so confused out there.

“It’s so stressful. She’s focusing so much on her serve, as we all are, when you’ve got that type of mindset, it’s very difficult to play your best tennis, especially against a world-class player who is making life difficult for you.

“Gauff is such a good competitor, but you saw at the end of the match that she couldn’t wait to get off that court quick enough. We’ve seen the emotion on the court, in tears at times. It’s been almost traumatic at times.

“She needs a little bit of time away from this environment to decompress and contemplate her next move.”

Gauff addressed the match in her press conference. “Today was disappointing because I felt it was the best I’ve served through the whole tournament,” she said. “Off the ground, I made too many mistakes in too many areas. So it was kind of a weird match with the different areas swapping.

“With how emotional this week way, I was maybe a little empty out there today.”

She added serving biomechanics expert Gavin MacMillan to her team shortly before the US Open and accepted that attempting to rebuild her serve so close to a Grand Slam proved difficult. Having won the French Open title in June, Gauff now has time to work with MacMillan, and Henman suggested a period away from competition may help her reshape the serve and return with a more complete game after a challenging few months since Roland Garros.

Taylor Fritz arrives at the US Open quarterfinals confronting two linked challenges: he is seeking his first Grand Slam title in his 37th attempt and he has yet to record a win over Novak Djokovic in 10 previous meetings. The American is 0-10 against the Serbian and has reached this stage after a straight-set victory over Tomas Machac.

Those statistics underline the scale of the task ahead. In their prior 10 matches, dating to 2019, Fritz won just three sets, all at the Australian Open. When they met in this round two years ago in New York, Djokovic swept him, 6-1, 6-4, 6-4.

Fritz has been candid about the gap. “I think the first, almost like seven or eight times I played him, I probably just wasn’t a good-enough player to really have that much of a chance,” he said on Sunday night.

A central technical mismatch is Djokovic’s return versus Fritz’s serve. Fritz noted Djokovic’s ability to attack second serves and to combine that with baseline consistency. “I think what makes it tough is he serves well, he serves aggressive on second serves,” Fritz said. “It’s tough to take advantage of his serve for how well he also returns and just is from the baseline.” He added, “He backs it up incredibly well with the serve. So it’s tough to sometimes get on him the way that he’s, I guess, getting on you with the return.”

Djokovic, meanwhile, expects opponents who have not beaten him to change their approach. “That was the case with Norrie, actually, last round,” Djokovic said. “I mean, he was playing more aggressively than he has ever played against me. So that’s something I expect. I expect players that never won against me to come out on the court and try something different and try to make me feel maybe uncomfortable and play more aggressive.”

Fritz recognises the mental difference when facing the elite. “But against the top guys…because you’re playing someone who they’re where they’re at for a reason, they’re not just going to hand it over to you, they’re not just going to give you a random mistake on a big point,” Fritz says. “You have to maybe pull the trigger and go out and take it from them.”

“I need to play more to win and not to lose, if that statement makes sense.” Both players reached the quarterfinals in strong form; Fritz’s straight-set win was followed by Djokovic’s own straight-set victory over Jan-Lennard Struff.