Wimbledon 2025: Rennae Stubbs Suggests The Main Reason Why Coco Gauff Lost in Wimbledon Round One
Coco Gauff: Ranked 42nd in the world, Yastremska pulled off a 7-6(7-3), 6-1 upset against WTA number two Gauff in London.
Gauff won the US Open after a Wimbledon first round loss back in 2023, with a repeat of that situation possible once more this year.
But the two-time Grand Slam champion is understandably disappointed with the result, although she isn’t the only female star to have suffered a shock exit.
Jessica Pegula fell in the first round to Elisabetta Cocciaretto, with former player Rennae Stubbs referencing the American in her analysis of Gauff’s defeat.
Speaking of Gauff, she said on The Rennae Stubbs Tennis Podcast: “Do I think she lost because of that [lack of preparation]?
“She sort of said in press she would approach things differently but I don’t think that was the issue. I think you could look at it and did it contribute? Maybe.
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“Because she did not have the prep that she needed on grass and I think that’s definitely possible that she did not have enough practice matches on grass.
“But I think this just came down to match up. I think if she played a Cocciaretto, I don’t think she would have liked Coco’s game like she liked Jessie’s game.
“Jess hits the ball really flat and hard into her hands. She is smaller in stature, the ball comes into her hitting zone. You have to always think about that.
“If Coco plays Petra Kvitova who is maybe not at her best and she is serving the ball to Coco’s backhand and Coco is getting her moving, Coco probably wins that match.
“When you think about Yastremska this is the biggest and worst match up for Coco in the first round. If Coco was confident coming in on grass, I still think that is a really hard match up.
“What does Yastremska do? She is the one, two, three maximum punch player. Bang with the return, bang with the second shot, serve plus one. She is not the type of person to rally for six or seven.
“Pegula probably has a better chance against Yastremska because she is going to get the ball back harder and Yastremska’s ability to hit five great shots, very rare, two or three very good.
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“So you have two problems. Coco’s forehand on clay gets up high and out of people’s hitting zones. She has time to run balls down on clay. She would not lose to Yastremska on clay, no way.”
Rennae Stubbs says what Coco Gauff should have done against Dayana Yastremska
A long list of seeded players have really struggled at the grass court Grand Slam this year, particularly the top women.
Four of the top five WTA seeds are now out of the competition, which includes 2024 runner-up Jasmine Paolini.
She is joined by Gauff, Pegula and Qinwen Zheng, with world number one Aryna Sabalenka the last such player standing.
The Belarusian will certainly have plenty of motivation to go all the way this month, having lost the Australian Open and French Open finals this year.
She lost the first to Madison Keys and the second to Gauff, who will soon turn her focus to the hard courts of the US Open.
Continuing her analysis of the 21-year-old on the current tour surface, however, Stubbs said of Gauff: “But on grass you do not have to take so much risk because if you hit the ball at 90mph on grass and it’s into the open court I don’t care how fast you are, Coco is the fastest player on tour, you are not getting to that ball.
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“On clay, you are getting to that ball and it’s going to come back and you are going to take more risk and miss.
“On grass her forehand is short, they can go one, two point is over and there is nothing Coco can do. Is she going to start striking the forehand bigger? Maybe. But that’s not her game.
“So my thought is that she should have been chipping and playing ugly when Yastremska hits the serve to the forehand, rather than try and crush the forehand, chip it back, make it ugly!
“Chip it below the net and you know she is not comfortable coming in. You have to have game plan B and that wasn’t the case.”
It will certainly be intriguing to see how Gauff deals with the shock loss, and more importantly if and how she will change her grass game to avoid future upsets.
She can, however, still hold her head very high regarding her season overall, which does, of course, include a superb Roland Garros title.
