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Team Coco Makes Coaching Change
11 Comments · Posted by Scoop Malinowski in Articles, Scoop
Coco Gauff’s stagnated singles career may get a spark from a familiar coaching figure. Gauff, who has underperformed with mediocre results in singles this summer, is now being coached by Brad Gilbert this week at the Mubadala Citi Open in Washington DC.
Gauff minimized the situation by saying Gilbert is just “helping” and he’s “not the official coach.” The intent of the change is for Gilbert to try to fix the Gauff faulty forehand which has been heavily nitpicked by the tennis media and fans.
A witness to a Gauff practice yesterday at the site of the Mubadala Citi Open reports that, “BG is very active.”
It could be a low-key tryout opportunity to Gilbert to test his input and chemistry with Coco and the Gauff family. Or it could be a short term advice absorption collaboration.
Gauff, the no. 3 seed at the Mubadala Citi Open, has a first round bye and will play the winner of the Hailey Baptiste vs Karolina Pliskova first round duel.
The 19 year old Gauff is currently ranked no. 7 in the WTA and her WTA site listed coach is former ATP player Pere Riba, who has previously worked with China’s Qinwen Zheng. Gauff has a singles match record this year of 27-12, with one title.
My Biofile interview with Brad Gilbert
Brad Gilbert · Coco Gauff · Mubadala Citi Open · New Balance
catherine · August 2, 2023 at 7:56 am
Gauff talks too much. I can’t find the link now but she discussed the Gilbert hiring and her game in great detail in an interview.
No reason to do that. Just makes a player seem weak and uncertain.
I doubt you’d catch Swiatek telling all about the state of her game/coaching etc. Just generalities.
Scoop Malinowski · August 2, 2023 at 8:39 am
Catherine, Gauff has to distribute propaganda about her game and flaws, she’s a wounded animal now. It’s a desperation move to bring in a high profile coach like Gilbert, they did not want it to reach this point. But the bad results forced this move. Now if he fixes her game and she wins something big, BG will get all the credit. And they will try to minimize his impact and credit.
catherine · August 3, 2023 at 10:33 am
Well, something you have to give Coco – she certainly divides fans. On one side of the aisle she’s the next Serena and the saviour of mankind (and the WTA) and on the other she’s lucky to win a match.
Myself, I see her as a promising youngster who probably spends too much time in front of the mirror rehearsing victory speeches. Packed stands for her win today.
Scoop Malinowski · August 3, 2023 at 10:56 am
Catherine, Coco said after beating Baptiste that they both had to deal with a lot of crap as juniors, implying they suffered racism. But I think she’s deceiving.
Coco Gauff had kind words for Baptiste: “It makes me a bit emotional playing Hailey because growing up, there wasn’t really too many black women in juniors. We had to deal with a lot of crap that you guys don’t know about.”
If any white person ever directed any kind of racist behavior or words at Coco, it would have been the end of them, parents would have lost jobs, kids would have been kicked out of tennis for years. Some blacks have a tendency to make fake racism claims to gain sympathy and an advantage. I saw the quote where early in her career Serena was asked if she ever experiences racism in her life in tennis and she had no answer. I was friends with a black player who was a highly rated junior and tried to make it as a pro, played Feliciano Lopez and some others who did make it. I asked him if he ever experienced racism in tennis? His answer, was once at a hotel, another guest mistook his mother for being a hotel worker. Disappointing to see Coco lie about about racism in tennis without giving any concrete examples. No white person would ever dare be racist against a black in tennis because it would be the end of their life and career. Look at what they did to Doug Adler. He references Nike’s ad campaign “Guerilla tennis” and the tennis media said he meant Gorilla tennis during a Venus match. His career and life were destroyed because of it.
Scoop Malinowski · August 3, 2023 at 11:44 am
Naomi Osaka on depression: “The first time I felt really depressed was after I won Indian Wells. It happened again when I won 2020 USO, & Beijing. I was in China, crying on court. After I won AO the 2nd time, I felt I had to do something because I don’t want to keep living this way.”
For someone to try to claim winning major titles caused depression is a stretch. This self-victimization scam may fool some fools. BTW where is her baby? Or alleged baby.
catherine · August 3, 2023 at 1:23 pm
Ben Rothenberg’s supposed to be writing, or has written, a book about Naomi. Is this a quote from it ?
I wouldn’t accuse anyone of faking depression – you’d have to be pretty desperate to do that. But I was surprised that someone who has seemingly been surrounded by family and friends for her entire career in tennis did not seek help earlier or was not offered help. Were her parents blind ?
I’m not sure what your point is. I suspect what Naomi is saying is that she discovered winning big titles did not make her feel happier so there was no motivation for her to carry on. If she was given medication she could not have continued anyway.
I’m pretty sure the baby is real. Some show off their babies, some don’t. Is Serena faking her second pregnancy ? It’s a girl BTW.
Scoop Malinowski · August 3, 2023 at 9:19 pm
Catherine, Osaka’s problem is not winning and making multi millions, her true dilemma is how she ruined her reputation and goodwill with the public because of her stupid militant political activism and the BLM garbage. She was universally adored and loved by tennis fans everywhere but after her political agenda pushing, she lost the support. Several fans have told me while we were talking tennis topics, “I used to love her, now I can’t stand her.” She feels that change of heart from the public and as a very sensitive young woman, it’s devastating or even traumatizing. She’s trying to do damage control by playing the pity card about fake depression, she wants to regain the fan support and adoration which she had and misses, she needs it to win. This is my theory and I’m standing by it. Osaka will never dare mention that her militant political activism was her downfall.
catherine · August 5, 2023 at 1:36 am
Ha ha…just as I’m busy writing Gauff off she turns in a good perfórmance v Bencic. Perhaps just the presence of Gilbert as another voice has changed her perspective a little.
catherine · August 5, 2023 at 4:56 am
Scoop – way off topic but I just saw this and remembered Fury came up in a previous conversation. You didn’t find him an ‘authentic’ character but maybe that’s just how he manages to keep a finger on the button of staying famous.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/aug/05/at-home-with-tyson-fury
Scoop Malinowski · August 5, 2023 at 8:33 am
Catherine, Fury is afraid to lose his title, status and career by losing to Joshua and Usyk, that’s why he ducked both. He wants to stay on top where he was, losing to them ends everything. He knows he’s not the same fighter he was and his body is a mess, he knows he will lose to AJ and Usyk. He can beat most of the other contenders. interesting the article avoided mentioning usyk and joshua.
Scoop Malinowski · August 5, 2023 at 8:34 am
seems the tournament wants tiafoe and gauff to win. foe lost to evans though. tournament owner openly cheering for foe.