"Why hasn't she won that final?": Andy Roddick weighs in Coco Gauff's situation heading into Roland Garros

As Roland Garros approaches, Coco Gauff finds herself in an unusual position. After a slow start of the season, the American has finally found her rhythm on clay reaching consecutive WTA 1000 finals in Madrid and Rome. However, Andy Roddick believes that Coco is navigating a 'weird place' mentally and emotionally, which could damage her quest for glory in France.

Gauff's journey this year has been a rollercoeaster. Before Madrid, she had not reached a final since the United Cup in January, and struggled to progress beyond quarter-finals. Yet, her back-to-back finals appearances in the Madrid Open and the Rome Open after that, have demonstrated her potential to go deep and fight for any title on clay.

Despite this, she lost both finals in straight sets, first to world's No. 1, Aryna Sabalenka at Spain's capital and then to local favorite Jasmine Paolini, at the Foro Italico.

2003 US Open champion, Andy Roddick, pointed out this paradox in the last episode of his podcast 'Served':

“She has played great, turned her year, which at the start was pretty average, and made finals in Madrid and Rome. It’s one of those things where you tell her a month ago that you win this many matches and it’s great, but you lose two finals and it’s like this sucks.”

"It’s weird – you know she is one of the favourites but she maybe felt angsty. Maybe it was that she didn’t want to bring the Italian crowd in, she was quiet," Roddick said.

"On air they were saying she looks flat. I don’t know that she was flat. Maybe she was strategic and she didn’t want to bring the crowd in against Paolini."

In Rome, Coco seamed to have a lot of problems with the ball speed last Saturday, heavier and slower than what's ideal for her, making it difficult to properly take advantage of the best features of her game, especially her serve. The world. No. 2 commited a total of 55 unforced errors, continually forcing the shots in a clear symptom of desperation.

With the French Open just days away, the tennis world will be watching closely to see if she can overcome this hurdles and raise to the challenge, as she has proven to be one of the best players of the Tour on clay on this Euro swing.