Coco Gauff makes ‘practice tournament’ confession ahead of China Open title defence

Ewan West 23 Sep 2025 9:15 AM

Coco Gauff during a press conference

Coco Gauff has spoken candidly about her mindset ahead of her title defence at the China Open as she also gave an update on her collaboration with Gavin MacMillan.

The world No 3 earned a dominant 6-1, 6-3 victory over Karolina Muchova to win last year’s edition of the WTA 1000 tournament in Beijing.

Gauff has not played since her lopsided 3-6, 2-6 defeat to Naomi Osaka in the fourth round of the 2025 US Open at the start of September.

In the week before the year’s final Grand Slam, Gauff parted ways with her former coach Matt Daly and hired biomechanics expert Gavin MacMillan with the aim of solving her serving issues.

Having been plagued by double faults during the North American hard-court swing, Gauff made a change to her service motion despite the short window before the start of the US Open.

Speaking ahead of her appearance at the China Open, Gauff revealed she is treating the final months of the season as preparation for 2026.

“Yeah, I got to take a break. Then I’ve just been training in Florida,” said the American.

“Yeah, I guess the focus is really just building for next year and treating this part of the swing kind of as a pre-season almost, which I did that last year.

“Ended up being successful, so we’ll see. Yeah, I think at this point of the year it’s always just looking at how to get better for next year.”

Gauff also explained that her French Open triumph in June has lifted the weight of expectations.

“Although technically I’m the defending champion [in Beijing], it doesn’t feel like that at all,” said the two-time major champion.

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“I don’t want to say ‘not care’ because obviously I’m not playing a tournament and trying to lose or anything.

“But yeah, there is definitely a weight that you kind of just don’t care in a way, especially when you’ve had like a good moment of the season. I think winning the French Open helped me take that weight off less.

“I think last year, I did care, but maybe I felt a little bit like I had to do something, because I hadn’t won a big title at that point, at that time of the year yet.

“I don’t know how I feel right now. I definitely feel a lot lighter. It feels, again, like a practice tournament. So we’ll see how it goes.”

The 21-year-old also revealed why MacMillan is not with her in Beijing.

“I’m still working with Gavin, but he’s not here because we started last minute so he had other plans for this part of the year,” Gauff said.

“We’ll be working with each other right when I get home from here. But it was a good learning experience.

“For me it was a tough challenge I think mentally more so than anything just, like, kind of losing trust in a lot of things, trying to find that in that tournament.

“But I really do think that it gives me confidence for the future. I mean, second week kind of having some really low moments on court.

“So I’m looking forward to now feeling refreshed and happy, feeling like I can trust myself all over again and see how I do with this mindset.”