Is Coco Gauff at a crossroads?

The Break: Coco Gauff releases a tennis ball-inspired sneaker

Coco Gauff seems to be living her best life. She’s barely 19 years old and already a global superstar. Her support team includes, among others, Roger Federer. Gauff has her own signature tennis shoe, an honor reserved for the high elite. Ranked No. 6, Gauff is civic-minded, bright, articulate, thoughtful and unafraid to leave the tennis bubble. In recent weeks, she has filmed a guest appearance for the television series All American: Homecoming, attended the World Baseball Classic, and hobnobbed with Miami Heat star Jimmy Butler, who showed up at the Miami Open to watch her play.

Coco Gauff has it all—all, that is, except the ultimate prize in tennis, a Grand Slam singles title.

Rest assured, Gauff is working on that, too. She’s already logged two major quarterfinals to go along runner-up finish to No. 1 ranked Iga Swiatek at last year’s French Open. She fired out of the blocks to start the year with a title in Auckland, and has been a model of consistency, winning at least three matches at four of her six events this year, compiling a record of 15-5.

Yet as the clay-court swing gets underway in Europe, Gauff appears to be at a crossroads.

“She is in the middle of finding out who she is,” Zina Garrison, the former Wimbledon finalist and world No. 4, told me recently. “She’s at a crossroads of age, maturity, being in the public eye, being a woman athlete, being a Black woman athlete. . . it’s a lot. Everybody has their eyes on her.

“I didn’t say anything about tennis, did I?”

When it comes to tennis, Garrison would go on to say, Gauff does have some work to do. That also was evident early this year. Gauff’s graceful upward arc—her ranking peaked at No. 4 last October—has been interrupted by three ferocious ball strikers: Jelena Ostapenko tagged Gauff in the fourth round of the Australian Open, Aryna Sabalenka knocked her out in a quarterfinal clash at Indian Wells and, in a third-round battle in Miami, Anastasia Potapova belted her way out of deep trouble to upset the young American.

It isn’t exactly fair to describe those three recent losses as setbacks. Ostapenko and Sabalenka are Grand Slam singles champions, Potapova is the 2016 junior Wimbledon junior champion. Sabalenka, in particular, can be a formidable obstacle, now that she’s found her confidence as a closer. There’s no reason for Coco to reach for the panic button, but the days when Gauff, a legitimate prodigy who qualified and reached the fourth round at Wimbledon at age 15, was hailed as “the next Serena Williams” are long over. She’s not the next anyone—she’s the first Coco Gauff, working and navigating her way through late adolescence while trying to develop a clear identity as a tennis professional.

She’s at a crossroads of age, maturity, being in the public eye, being a woman athlete, being a Black woman athlete. . . it’s a lot. Zina Garrison

“This is going to be an interesting couple of months for Coco,” peripatetic analyst and former doubles standout Rennae Stubbs told me, referring to Gauff’s unexpected split shortly after the Miami tournament with her coach of just over a year, Diego Moyano (he cited “personal reasons” for the separation). Moyano had orchestrated Gauff’s terrific run on red clay in 2022. “The timing is unusual, considering how well she did on clay last year.”

The immediate challenge for Gauff is simple: she is being overpowered, at least on hard courts, with her defensive skills unable to turn the tables on some newly-matured or established big hitters. After Gauff lost in Miami, Tennis Channel analyst Chanda Rubin said, “It’s not a great feeling when you get outhit. It happened a little bit with Sabalenka. Here (in Miami) it was Potapova, dictating points over and over. Gauff definitely has to look to reset and play a little more offensive tennis and use her complete game.”

The problem—if that word can apply to a game that has carried the teenager deep into the Top 10—may be that Gauff still hasn’t committed to a specific style of play, a process impeded by the difference between her rock-solid backhand and an erratic, assailable forehand.

“On faster surfaces Coco will continue to struggle against big hitters until she figures out a way to keep them away from her forehand,” Stubbs said. “She has to figure out a way to get that forehand deeper, and not miss it as often.”

Although she’s naturally explosive and supremely athletic, Gauff has drifted into an over-reliance on defense, and she knows it. After the loss to Potapova, she told reporters, “I think that’s kind of been where I’ve been messing up in all my matches this year. I think it [defense] should be more used as a tool in a toolbox than as a weapon. I think I have to change my mentality in the game.”

Garrison believes that the path forward for Gauff is an embrace of the all-court game, with an emphasis on getting into the forecourt.

“She needs a little more experience and a little more self-understanding to get there and feel good about it,” Garrison says. “Coco’s been surrounded by adults telling her what to do all her life. But the confidence to play that way, to step in at break point and bring pressure and get in the face of her opponent, that comes from experience and commitment. And that’s all on her.”

Stubbs believes Gauff has all the physical tools to be more aggressive.

“Coco is very comfortable coming to the net. She enjoys it. Her willingness to move forward is fantastic, she knows how to cover the net and she has great hands. She can be like [Carlos] Alcaraz, using speed and athleticism to get up to the net after a good shot or approach.”

She has to figure out a way to get that forehand deeper, and not miss it as often. Rennae Stubbs

The move to clay will trigger a reset even if Gauff is not yet fully invested on attacking tennis. The surface may help Gauff combat late-blooming WTA bombardiers, like Sabalenka and Elena Rybakina, who have vulnerabilities, but also years of experience on Gauff.

“She’ll be a real threat again on clay,” Stubbs said. “It will give her more time and a higher bounce, which will help her forehand. If she hits deep into the court, her athleticism will enable her to get to the net.”

Clay wizard Iga Swiatek, who allowed Gauff just four games in last year’s blowout final at Roland Garros, is a different case altogether. But Garrison said Gauff needn’t lose sleep fretting over the Polish star.

“She doesn’t need to worry about anyone else,” Garrison said. “Right now, she’s in the middle of finding out who she is—and how she wants to play. Coco’s time will be Coco’s time, and I do believe it will come.”

At her age, Gauff has all the time in the world, and the potential to make the most of it.