John McEnroe lays into Coco Gauff and calls out endorsements - 'Give me a break'

John McEnroe lays into Coco Gauff and calls out endorsements – ‘Give me a break’

Posted by author September 12, 2024 Tennis

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John McEnroe has urged Coco Gauff to find balance as he suggested her “commercials” and brand deals could be hampering her tennis.

Last year’s US Open champion lost in the fourth round, looking visibly frustrated as she hit 19 double faults and 60 total unforced errors.

It came off the back of a disappointing run during the Olympics and the North American hard-court swing. And McEnroe now wants to see something change.

The seven-time Grand Slam champion believes that Gauff should first look at her team. Before her incredible run last summer, she started working with Pere Riba and Brad Gilbert – a move that more than paid off. Riba has since left the camp.

“I don’t know about what is going on in her team, but I suspect there will be changes, that’s my guess,” McEnroe said. “When she made the change last year and brought in Brad, it spurred her on and she had this great run in the hard court season.

“Now it’s a year later and I don’t know what has happened. She is still having issues with her serve, she is still having issues with her forehand.”

The retired former No.1 also slammed suggestions that Gauff could just step up and follow Serena Williams’ legacy. He added: “She seems to be more outwardly frustrated on the court and venting more than I’ve seen before. I guess that’s just the pressure of expectations.

“People are just saying, ‘Oh, go and follow in the footsteps of Serena Williams.’ You are like, ‘Oh really, that will be easy.’ Give me a break.”

And McEnroe had another suggestion as to why Gauff had been struggling. “I’ve noticed she has been on a lot of commercials as well, so they’ve got to balance that with giving her time to work on her game and feel super confident again,” he claimed.

“You can tell she’s not feeling that right now.”

It seems Gauff is keen to work on the parts of her game that let her down against Emma Navarro at the US Open. “I don’t know what my schedule will look like at the end of this year. I feel like I want to spend a good training block. I hadn’t had that since maybe before the clay season started,” she explained,

“Yeah, I think we’ll see how Asia goes, and we’ll see – obviously if I qualify [for the WTA Finals], I’ll play. I think for me in the long-term I definitely want to get a good training block, and I guess we’ll see how many tournaments I play for the rest of the year.”