Former US Open champion Andy Roddick has applauded Coco Gauff’s strategy in winning her maiden Roland Garros trophy. Gauff upset the odds when she defeated the top seed and World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka in Paris, registering a 6-7(5), 6-2, 6-4 victory over the Belarusian.
In the match’s aftermath, Sabalenka pointed out that the 70 unforced errors she committed over the three sets caused her defeat, rather than Gauff’s winning tennis. She later retracted that statement and acknowledged that Gauff had handled the occasion and the difficult weather conditions better.
Andy Roddick was World No. 1 in 2003 and is now a highly respected tennis broadcaster and pundit, who hosts the Served with Andy Roddick podcast. Roddick was talking to The Tennis Channel, which released the interview on their X page.
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Roddick felt that Coco Gauff was not given the credit she deserved for her victory, insisting that the 21-year-old is adept at drawing opponents into playing matches on her terms (from 1:25):
"Making the other person play badly is absolutely a skill, and we always kind of refer to it as a negative, she [Gauff} is the best in the world at, kind of, dragging you in to this game with her, where she can rely on different spins and play defense, and a "one-more-ball" mentality, and that's exactly what she did in the final."
Rather than blaming Sabalenka's poor unforced error count in the final, Roddick prefers to believe that it was Coco Gauff's strategic approach that brought her her second Grand Slam title:
"The win was great for her, right, then she didn't have to go toe-to-toe on the forehand side. She could let the ball flutter up on Aryna Sabalenka. But that's not an accident, that's taking advantage of the situation, that's called strategy, and I don't know that we give her enough credit for it."
Coco Gauff won the US Open in 2023 as an 18-year-old, and now at 21, is a two-time Major champion. The American is now No. 2 in the WTA world rankings.
Coco Gauff quickly refuted Aryna Sabalenka's claims after French Open victory
After the French Open final, Aryna Sabalenka told a press conference that she blamed her own shortcomings for the loss. Many observers felt she failed to acknowledge her opponent's qualities. Sabalenka said, as reported by ABC News:
"I think she won the match not because she played incredible; just because I made all of those mistakes ... kind of like from easy balls."
Gauff expressed her surprise at Sabalenka's comments, but appeared to agree with Andy Roddick's assessment of the match, saying that she used the adverse weather conditions to devise a strategy to defeat her more powerful opponent:
"I saw how windy it was on the court, I knew it was gonna be an ugly win. I had to force her to play that way and make a lot of balls and put those balls in the court."
The new French Open champion will be confident going into the grass court season. She plays Wang Xinyu at the Berlin Grass Court Championships on June 18, and will be hoping to improve on her best fourth round finish at Wimbledon next month.
