Coco Gauff could face a devastating rankings collapse in the final weeks of the season

Coco Gauff is heading into the final phase of the 2025 tennis season with big question marks hanging over her and if she fails to solve the long-running problems on her serve, she could be in line to face a crushing rankings collapse by the end of the year.

Gauff crashed out of the US Open after a defeat against Naomi Osaka, with her story in her home Grand Slam painful to watch as she was battling to control her service motion that was less than stable.

The 21-year-old won the French Open in June, but that triumph was achieved as she battled to find her best service form and she eventually made the decision to change her coaching a few days before the US Open.

She called on the services of renowned biomechanics coach Gavin MacMillan, but did not have enough time ahead of the US Open to fine-tune her new service motion.

Many experts suggest Gauff should take a break from tennis to solve her serving problems, but she has a huge number of ranking points to defend in the final weeks of this year and that ensured she needed to play on the Asian swing of the WTA Tour.

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Gauff won the China Open in this part of last year and collected 1,000 ranking points for that triumph and she then reached the semi-finals of the WTA 1000 event in Wuhan, collecting another 390 points.

She then won the WTA Finals in Saudi Arabia and picked up 1,300 points, with that event looming on her horizon once again.

If she had opted out of this part of the season and dropped 2,690 points from her rankings total, she would have slipped down to around No 8 in the WTA Rankings, which would be a big fall from her current position of No 3.

A break at this time of the year would also have been a huge financial sacrifice, as Gauff won around $6m from her tournaments in this phase of last season.

While taking time away from tennis to work on her serve with coach MacMillan may have been an option, she is in China for the W1000 event without her coach, who is unavailable this week.

“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.

“I got to take a break (after the US Open). Then I’ve just been training in Florida.

“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.”

Former British No 1 Tim Henman gave his views on Gauff’s issues after her US Open defeat against Osaka, as he suggested it was painful to watch her progress in New York.

“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,” Henman told Sky Sports.

“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 is going to try and work on her serving issues during a tournament and it may be that she finds a way to navigate her way to glory, as she battled through serving issues at this stage of last season to enjoy a find run of winning form.

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