Tomorrow turns into a “promise” for Coco Gauff in Miami

Unfinished masterpieces in the arts have a special allure, but they exist in many other realms including tennis, where Coco Gauff  is an international star who remains a work in progress, uncompleted.  That much was evident in her recent loss in the final of the Miami Open, where she was tasked with halting the WTA juggernaut Aryna Sabalenka.

Gauff almost stymied the top-ranked Belarussian’s drive to complete a sweep of the “Sunshine Double” 1000-grade events. But in the end, the youngest American to reach the final of the Miami Open since Serena Williams more than two decades ago, buckled under a barrage of Sabalenka groundstrokes and atomic serves, 6-2, 4-6, 6-3 in two hours and 10 minutes.

It’s tempting to think, “Ho hum. Sabalenka wins again. She’s unbeatable these days.” It would be justified:  Going in, Sabalenka has suffered just one loss (that in a Grand Slam final) in 23 matches this year. But context is all.

Read More: Aryna Sunshine Double-enka! Sabalenka beats Coco Gauff to complete Indian Wells-Miami sweep

Gauff is ranked No. 4 and, at age  22, roughly five years younger than Sabalenka. She was the first opponent to take a set off Sabalenka in the tournament, and she did so despite her  ongoing struggle to fix a wonky serve and sometimes disobedient forehand serve return. (Sabalenka broke it down on a few key moments when serving into the deuce court). There’s a bigger story lurking here, which is that at the 11th hour Gauff managed to slough off a mediocre start to the year (11-5 before Miami, no finals). And here’s the kicker: the tour is moving to clay, where Gauff is the defending champion who bamboozled Sabalenka in the title match of a major.

In her news conference after the Miami final, Sablenka said of Gauff: “Oh, my God. Her movement is something else. Going into matches against her, I know that there is always going to be an extra ball. It's all about stay focused and be ready for an extra ball to come back. [Her] movement is something else, you know. I wish I could move even like 70% from what she has, [that] would be enough for me.”

That’s one half of Gauff’s red-dirt equation: she’s designed to prolong punishing rallies far longer on clay, and she will be hurt less by the kind of power serving  and go-for-broke groundstrokes that are effective on hard courts.

The other half of the calculus is Gauff’s overall fitness and athleticism. She is slender, and utterly in her element running herself ragged on clay. The Miami final, played on a fast hard court, was not extremely lengthy. But Sabalenka was looking gassed by the final few games. Perhaps it was emotional tension, or something else, but the reality is that Sabalenka is big and, while fast, not particularly light on her feet. Elena Rybakina is currently the only player who can beat her by knockout, but on clay a number of women - led by Gauff - could win by decision.

Tennis Channel commentator Andrea Petkovic put it best after the final, saying on air: “Coco just did what she does so well. She just competes and competes and competes. No matter how well the opponent is playing, how much she is zoning. She just competes and waits for a chance. And she got her chance.”

Read More: Coco Gauff can’t make eye-contact with Christopher Eubanks in Miami Open interview

Technically, Gauff’s performance was a mixed bag. When you lack confidence in your second serve there’s a tendency to hit and watch it, hopefully. It’s a momentary, blink-of-the-eye kind of thing, but in today’s high-speed game that extra beat can be costly. Just the awareness of it can be corrosive,  trickling down to other nooks and crannies.  In Coco’s game, that means her forehand.

Gauff’s forehand withstood the pressure, except for those out-wide deuce-court serves with which Sabalenka scored heavily at key times. She was aided by Gauff daring her to seek angles by not varying  her return stance. That issue can be addressed, but it may prove  harder - even on clay - to deal with the combination of spin and power that Sabalenka applies to her groundstrokes. Getting to them demands a critical, extra step. Even for a jackrabbit like Gauff, that’s asking a lot. But it’s a less painful question on clay.

Life happens... Tomorrow is not a promise. I just want to make sure I make decisions that I know I won't regret in the future.

To reach the final, Gauff hammered her way through four three-set matches before blowing out former Roland Garros runner-up Karolina Muchova in the semis.  The performance was a good omen for the spring because, in her previous outing, Gauff retired midway through a third-match at Indian Wells with shooting pains in her left arm and left the desert in disarray. Her support team advised her to skip Miami, but she overruled them.

“I just wasn't in the right mindset leaving Indian Wells,” Gauff said after an early-round win in Miami. “I think they (her team) were more protective of me, more so just making sure I didn't lose myself in the sport, and that's why they wanted the break.”

But Gauff dug in her heels, explaining:

“You know, life happens. You just realize, you know, if I had the opportunity to play this tournament, I'd rather take it up. Because you don't know what's gonna happen. Tomorrow is not a promise. I just want to make sure I make decisions that I know I won't regret in the future.”

Instead of “getting lost” in her profession, Gauff found something she had misplaced. Sleeping in her own bed, driving to and from the tournament, tossing a football with her brother for pre-match warm-ups, basking in the adulation of the Miami crowd, those close, three-set escapes -  they all worked to have a salutary, calming influence on Gauff. And when it was all over, she told the crowd, “I felt a lot of joy this week. . . I felt a lot of gratitude.”

On a more mundane plane, Gauff will also feel thankful for some changes in her game as she ships off to Europe. She believes that the improvements she’s been trying to make are taking hold, especially with her forehand. “Earlier this year I felt that  I was practicing well and just waiting for it to click. And I think it's not obviously fully clicked, but I think it is clicking.”

Gauff also continues to work on her serve, and despite those seven double faults in the final. Sure,  there were key points and games during which her fans probably watched through fingers at their eyes as she made her toss. But she did not make serving errors at the most critical of moments. The forensic specialists in the broadcast booths generally agree that Gauff’s serving blues can be traced to her toss, which is fixable.

The rough edges in Gauff’s game are obvious. Has there ever been a player of her caliber with as many? But she has proven over and over that she can win in spite of them. Her stubbornness is already legendary, and it just may be that she extracts extra motivation and increased determination from her flaws, bent on proving everyone wrong.

Would the Gauff that so many love be the same Coco if she no longer had to strive to contain her shortcomings? Would she remain as resilient and tough? Those are interesting questions, and point toward Gauff’s claim that, “I feel like I'm nowhere near my peak of my tennis... I can see clearly where I can improve on and do a lot better with.”

The clay season will give Gauff the opportunity to back up those words.