Tennis great Mats Wilander feels Coco Gauff has “stagnated slightly”, but he explained why he is “not worried” about the American ahead of her US Open title defence. 

The seven-time Grand Slam champion also proclaimed that Aryna Sabalenka is a “huge favourite” to triumph at the 2024 US Open.

Gauff won her maiden major title at the 2023 US Open, where she overcame Sabalenka in three sets in the championship match.

The 20-year-old American won her only title since her victory at Flushing Meadows in Auckland in January and has lost four of her last seven matches during a difficult recent run.

Speaking to Eurosport, Wilander pointed to two shots he expected Gauff to have developed more by now, while identifying the positives for the world No 3 before her home major.

“I think technically you would have to say that she has stagnated slightly,” said the Swede. “Her serve didn’t improve as much as we thought. Her forehand didn’t improve as much as we thought.

“But I think her fighting spirit is there and the US Open is going to fire her up. And can you imagine the American fans, how they are going to support her, mainly because she is not playing well. I think they’re going to be so much on her side that it’s really going to help her.

“I’m not sure what’s wrong with Gauff, except I think what is most probably different is that she’s so young. She’s already won the US Open. She’s the American hope. Obviously, in many ways she’s sort of become a little bit of the face of the WTA tour.

“Yes, we have Sabalenka, Swiatek and of course [Elena] Rybakina. But Gauff is younger. She plays a different style of tennis and I think people really, really enjoy that.

“And for her to answer the call of being a Grand Slam champion, doing it at home, that gives her so much confidence when she gets to play in a Slam, and she knows how to do that.

“So I’m not worried. I think it’s another situation where, ‘Hey, listen, I proved the point to myself and to a lot of critical people out there that I can win a major’.

“Who cares in the end if you win in Cincinnati or Washington, which she did last year, who really cares because it’s all about the major.”

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Sabalenka, the world No 2, enters the US Open in strong hard-court form, having won the Cincinnati WTA 1000 event after runs to the semi-finals in Washington and the quarter-finals in Toronto.

The 26-year-old Belarusian has won her both of her Grand Slam titles to date on hard courts in the last two editions of the Australian Open.

Wilander, a former world No 1, argued Sabalenka’s prowess on hard courts makes her the clear player to beat at Flushing Meadows.

“[Sabalenka] is becoming the big favourite in most tournaments, to be honest, even when it’s on clay,” assessed Wilander.

“I still put her at 50-50 with Iga Swiatek, but I think that there are more players that can beat Sabalenka on a clay court than there are that can beat Swiatek.

“Now, when you go the other way on hard courts, there are very, very few players that Sabalenka can lose to. There are very, very few players on a hard court that believe they can beat Sabalenka.

“There are a few players that believe that Sabalenka can beat herself, but with every win she has in tournaments, with every win she has against Swiatek, every win she has against the best players in the world, the less that is true.

“Sabalenka knows that she can win matches and tournaments when she’s not at her best, which then I think makes her play her best tennis more often. So a huge favourite.

“And the interesting thing, it’s a big change because in the women’s game we haven’t had a big favourite in quite a few years, especially on hard courts.

“Yes at Roland Garros, but otherwise not. And Sabalenka has become the huge favourite to win the US Open and maybe that’s the first time for her as well, that everybody is expecting her to win.”

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