Coco Gauff grades her game after making 51 unforced errors as she also makes Brad Gilbert confession
Coco Gauff was far from her best during her Australian Open quarter-final win over Marta Kostyuk in a scrappy match that had more than 100 unforced errors.
After producing excellent displays during the first four rounds, reigning US Open champion Gauff was erratic from the start at Rod Laver Arena on Tuesday before getting her act together to win 7-6 (8-6), 6-7 (3-7), 6-2 in a contest that lasted three hours and eight minutes.
The American, who faces either defending champion Aryna Sabalenka or Barbora Krejcikova in the semi-final, made 51 unforced errors with 17 winners while her opponent hit 56 unforced errors and 29 winners.
Despite her sluggish performance, Gauff was happy to get through, especially after finding herself in a deep hole at 1-5 down in the opening set.
“Today was definitely a C game, I didn’t play my best tennis but I’m really proud that I was able to get through today’s match,” she said.
“Hopefully, I have got the bad match out of the way and I can play even better.”
The 19-year-old added: “I wasn’t playing great, I was just missing everything on both wings and not serving well. I was just trying to win one extra game [during the first set] that was really the one thing I was just [thinking] like let me make it competitive.
“Sometimes when you’re down 5-1 you’re not expecting to win the set but you know I believe every point game matters and eventually the score started to get closer and then I was back on serve, I was just fighting as much as possible.
“I know going in playing her it’s a tough match she’s pretty athletic and we kind of play similar I think. Today she was just more offensive.”
READ MORE: Brad Gilbert reveals how a former world No 1 has helped improve a key Coco Gauff shot
During the post-match press conference, it was put to Gauff that it was a case of winning ugly, which is the title of her coach Brad Gilbert’s autobiography.
The teenager revealed that she does have a copy of “Winning Ugly”, but she is yet to read it and is happy that she is able to deal with the “real version” every day.
“I bought a copy, but I didn’t read it. Maybe I should add it to my reading list,” she said.
“My mom got it for me when we were in talks to possibly work with Brad and she was like ‘you need to read this’. She read it but I didn’t, although I feel like I got the real version [of Gilbert] so I don’t need the book. Maybe it could help [reading it], I’ll probably do it just to surprise him.”
