Coco Gauff leads ace chart, but all too familiar story during Australian Open exit

Shahida Jacobs
Pictured: Coco Gauff during her match
A disappointed Coco Gauff

Coco Gauff served the most aces during her 2025 Australian Open run, but she also topped the double fault chart as she made a disappointing exit from the hard-court Grand Slam.

The American played five matches at Melbourne Park and served 32 aces with Donna Vekic next best on 23 from four matches before she lost while a few others are still to complete their last-eight clashes.

Gauff also made 35 double faults – well ahead of fellow quarter-finalists Emma Navarro (17) and Elina Svitolina (15) although both still have to play their matches.

The third seed did manage to keep the double faults down to just six against Paula Badosa in the quarter-final, but her unforced error count was quite high.

There were 41 unforced errors – 28 off her forehand – and she also struggled on her own serve as she won only 48 out 86 (56%) service points to go with the 45 unforced errors against Belinda Bencic in the previous round.

There had been signs of improvement on serve in recent months after she started working with Matt Daly last year, but her serve and unforced error count were her downfall against Badosa as her winning streak came to an end on 11 with the 7-5, 6-4 defeat to the Spaniard.

But Gauff remains optimistic about her path forward.

“Even though I lost today, I feel like I’m on an upward trajectory,” the 2023 US Open winner said. “I feel like (at the) US Open I was playing with no solutions, so I think that was more the frustrating part. Today, I feel like I’m playing with solutions.

“I know what I need to work on.”

She added: “I needed to work on my serve.

“I’m not saying that my serve is where I want it to be, but I worked on it. Obviously a big improvement. I want to continue working on that, continue working on playing aggressive.”

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The “internet coaches” were having a field day as Gauff struggled against Badosa, but making comments on social media is much easier than when out on court.

“I guess you have to realise that most of the internet coaches never coached anyone at my level or never played,” Gauff said.

“It is one of those things [that] is easier to look on the outside, people saying ‘she should have made this or he should have made that’ even when I am watching [I do that], but when you are out there it is different.

“That is what I take from it as I am the one out there, I am the one who makes the decisions at the end of the day. So if people want to say things, it is what it is. I take it with a grain of salt, some people do mean well I don’t take it as all bad.

“I’m proud of myself, that’s all I can say and I will try to continue to do my best to improve, live up to my own expectations. Whatever everybody else has [in terms of expectations], I can’t control that.”