ANALYSIS: What went wrong for Coco Gauff after dismal Wimbledon run

Coco Gauff arrived in London with high hopes, but her run at Wimbledon didn’t go as planned. Unfortunately, it’s not the first time Gauff has had a pretty lacklustre run at Wimbledon. Last year’s campaign was dreadful, ending in the first round against compatriot Sofia Kenin, who has had her well-documented struggles in recent years.

Gauff described her loss to Kenin as the lowest point of her career, but luckily, when you hit rock bottom, you can only go up. The bounce back was spectacular, culminating in the US Open triumph, and even then, Gauff pointed to the match with Kenin as a sort of trigger that forced her to change a few things in her approach.

One key thing she changed was simply not worrying about it too much. The loss to Kenin came because it was at Wimbledon. She opened up candidly about how the event used to give her a lot of pressure because it all kind of started there for her. She was 15 and beat Venus Williams there, which set the bar high, and she felt suffocated by it. After letting go of that, she was able to play freely again, and that’s why the US Open stretch was so successful.

The approach carried over to this year, so Gauff arrived at Wimbledon with a lot of confidence that things would go well. She would play both the singles and doubles and things would go well right? It certainly started that way. Gauff won her opening match against Caroline Dolehide 6-1 6-2 and showed a similar level against Anca Todoni 6-2 6-1.

Her sole prep for the event was at the Berlin Open, where she played well but lost to Jessica Pegula in the quarter-finals. After smashing native player Sonay Kartal 6-4 6-0, Gauff’s quarter-final chances at Wimbledon rose rapidly, but everything would go badly in her next singles match.

She had to face compatriot Emma Navarro, whom she had smashed in Auckland earlier that year, 6-3, 6-1. It was a matchup that suited her well, and everybody expected Gauff to win that one easily and secure the quarter-final. She ended up playing a pretty dreadful match in many ways.

Funnily enough, the start of the match was pretty good for her.

She was the first to break, taking a 3-2 lead, but as often happens, she wouldn’t hold that break. She returned it right away, and then she wasted two more break points to go up again. Everything was unravelling for Gauff, who grew increasingly frustrated with what was going on the court. Navarro had a really clear idea of what she wanted to do, and she shared it after beating Gauff.

“I really wanted to attack her forehand. I think she wanted to do the same to me. We found ourselves in a lot of forehand cross-court rallies. It was kind of a cat and mouse, who will change the pattern first."

That was a smart strategy because Gauff famously struggles with her forehand, especially under pressure. It’s probably one of the weakest forehands among all the top players, and it’s a problem. She was supposed to work on it during last year's offseason, but there hasn’t been a dramatic improvement. It’s more stable now, but it’s still far from good, and it’s a problem.

This match against Navarro proved problematic because she couldn’t keep up in the forehand exchanges. Another thing Navarro wanted to do was attack the serve.

“Then, yeah, I wanted to attack her serve and make her feel like if she’s hitting a second serve, I don’t want her to be comfortable on her second serve, consequentially not comfortable on her first serve."

That’s another smart thing because Gauff can struggle with her serve a lot. That match was one of those days. She hit the first serve only 56 % of the time, and Navarro was all over her when she didn't, winning over 50 % of those rallies. That put a lot of pressure on Gauff, who lost the opening set 6-4.

The second set was equally challenging, with Gauff failing to create a single break point and losing 6-3. She finished the match with only 12 winners and 25 unforced errors, most of which were from her forehand. This performance was simply not up to par in today's competitive tennis landscape. Navarro's well-executed plan, which targeted Gauff's weaknesses, left her with no effective response.

That’s a problem because most of what went wrong for her is easily fixable. She should fix it, but she’s yet to really do it. Perhaps this match will finally convince her to address the forehand because many former players have called it out as a problem in her game. You need a forehand in today’s tennis, and if you don’t have one, you’re setting yourself up for failure.

And that was it. That’s what went badly wrong. When she faced a player who could expose her weaknesses, she simply had nothing to counter. She has the same problem against Iga Swiatek, who is a far superior hitter than her, and it shows when they play.

Regarding the doubles, it was a decent run, but then they ran into Elise Mertens and Su-Wei Hsieh and got smoked in two sets 6-2 6-1. The Belgian-Taiwanese combo is simply too strong right now, and Pegula and Gauff haven’t really played that much together, which also showed in this match. They’re still a big threat at the upcoming Olympics, where Gauff hopes to win a gold medal. We’ll see if her forehand will remain stable enough for that to happen, but with Iga Swiatek looking monstrous on clay. I doubt it.