Coco Gauff’s loss to Aryna Sabalenka was disappointing, but it was also a good gauge of where her game stands

After her 7-6 (2), 6-4 semifinal loss to Aryna Sabalenka at the Australian Open on Thursday, Coco Gauff started her press conference with a surprising assertion.

“You know, US Open I felt like wasn’t a great match for me,” she said. “Yes, I won. I think I played better tonight.”

Gauff was referring to her breakthrough victory over Sabalenka in last year’s US Open final. While that night in New York was a life-changing triumph for her, and this night in Melbourne was a downer in the end, she didn’t let disappointment keep her from recognizing the truth about the two matches. She didn’t see this one as a step back.

She’s right. At the US Open, Gauff didn’t have to do a whole lot to coax Sabalenka into imploding. This time the world No. 2 played up to her abilities. In that sense, this match was a better gauge of where the American is with her game, and where she stands in relation to Sabalenka and the other top players at this point in her career.

Where is that, exactly? Gauff summed up her defeat this way:

I had chances in both sets, but she played better tonight. I felt like I did my best with the game plan that I had. I think it just came down to a couple of points, and that’s tennis.

Considering her level of play at the start, Gauff should be proud that she made this a match at all.

She lost the first seven points, was down 2-0 in three minutes, and trailed 2-5. But Gauff has a history of making comebacks against Sabalenka and driving her crazy with her retrieving skills, and Sabalenka obviously remembered that. At 2-5, Gauff went into scramble mode, Sabalenka started to overhit and over-emote, and suddenly Gauff was serving for the set at 6-5, 30-0, and tracking down everything in sight.

But that’s when the pressure shifted back onto the American’s shoulders. Not surprisingly, that’s when her two more vulnerable shots, her serve and forehand, began to crack again. At 30-15, she nervously decelerated on a forehand and put it into the net. After Sabalenka broke, Gauff didn’t make a first serve in the tiebreaker.

The same pattern held in the second set. With Sabalenka serving at 3-4, Gauff went up 0-30—and an approving buzz went up in the crowd. Rather than crumble, though, Sabalenka defiantly fought back to hold. At 4-4, Gauff lost one point with a weak second serve, another with a netted forehand, and was broken.

“I cleaned up the first set, put myself in the position to serve out the set,” Gauff said. “Today I didn’t feel like I played bad. I just felt there were certain points that I just didn’t win.”

“I wish I could have made more first serves. I think that was the difference.”

As for her second serve, she says it’s the placement, rather than the speed, that hurt her most.

“I was just hitting it right to her forehand, and so she knew where it was going every single time,” Gauff said. “So I think I want to work on that in the future.”

Overall, in her 12 days in Melbourne, Gauff showed that winning a Grand Slam title isn’t going to magically fix the flaws in her game. Her serve and forehand still come and go, she doesn’t always swing through them with freedom and confidence, and when things get tight, they get tight, too.

At the same time, this tournament showed that Gauff’s major title wasn’t a fluke, and that outside of someone like Sabalenka, there don’t seem to be many players who can exploit her weaknesses or take advantage of her bad days. In her quarterfinal against Marta Kostyuk, Gauff played what she called her “C-game”—her forehand, in particular, was all over the place. But she never lost her cool or her poker face, never got down on herself, and ended up winning the third set 6-0. Even on an off day, she was able to win a Grand Slam quarterfinal with her head, heart, and legs. Thats a good thing to know.

Gauff, who had a chance to rise to No. 2 in the world at this tournament, also knows she’s in a good place for a 19-year-old. It’s just that sometimes needs to remind herself to take the long view.

“I tend to be hard on myself, so I feel like today I was, like, ‘Dang,’” she said of her loss to Sabalenka.

Then, a few seconds later, when she was asked if she had accomplished what she wanted to accomplish as a teenager (Gauff will turn 20 in March), she found some perspective.

“I am really proud of myself,” she said. “I did want to win a Slam as a teenager, and I did that. Obviously today I was hoping to get No. 2, or at least give myself a chance to get No. 2. It didn’t happen, but I feel like I’m there, yeah. So hopefully I can go only upwards from here.”

After this tournament, Gauff knows her place in the WTA pecking order. The defeat may be disappointing right now, but it will be useful going forward. If you want to climb higher, you need to know where you’re standing first.