Coco Gauff says her 2025 start is “not as bad as it seems” after Indian Wells loss to Bencic

It made sense that Coco Gauff’s 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 loss to Belinda Bencic on Wednesday ended with her hitting a forehand return over the baseline. If there was one shot that defined this match and made the difference in the result, it was that one.

Gauff did a fair number of things well over the course of its two hours and 20 minutes. As always, she defended, she scrapped, she competed until the end, she cracked her backhand, and she only double-faulted eight times over three sets—significantly better than the 21 she threw in during her first match in Indian Wells. But when Bencic needed a point, especially on her serve, she knew where to go. In one game, Gauff hit four forehand returns long. In the next Bencic service game, she hit three forehand returns long.

After the last of those shanks—and most of them were shanks—she looked at her racquet and said, “Oh my goodness.” For Coco, that’s the equivalent of a lengthy, profanity-laced rant from most players.

Thursday is Gauff’s 21st birthday. Her entry into the milestone occasion probably would have been more fun if she had won and was still in the tournament. In general, though, 2025 hasn’t been the season of her dreams, or what most of us expected when it began.

Gauff finished 2024 at the peak of her powers, winning a 1000 in Beijing and her first WTA Finals title in Riyadh. She had a new coach and a new determination to fix her two biggest flaws, her serve and forehand. When she kicked off 2025 by beating Iga Swiatek and going 5-0 in United Cup, Coco found herself at the top of the contender heap for the Australian Open.

But if we, and Gauff, have learned anything during her six years on tour, it’s that she is going to have ups and downs, and that no winning or losing streak lasts for too long. That’s true for just about every player not named Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, or Serena. Even the most talented and mentally tough of them will gain and lose confidence multiple times during a season that goes non-stop for 11 months of the year.

With Gauff, though, those peaks and valleys are more pronounced and extreme. After losing in the first round at Wimbledon in 2023, she hired Brad Gilbert and immediately won her first 500, her first 1000, and her first Grand Slam. By the end of the next summer, though, she was back in a slump, and her serve had deserted her. So she split with Gilbert and immediately started winning everything in sight to close out 2024.

By now, Coco is well aware of the pattern. When she was asked, in light of her 21st birthday, what he has learned on tour, she said this:

“Just accepting the highs and lows. I think sometimes in sports you want to just stay on the high and kind of ride that wave, but especially with this sport, a season as long as tennis, it’s kind of impossible to always be on that high wave, and there’s going to be some low moments I think. Just trying to stick through those tough moments and get better through them.”

Four or five years ago, Gauff’s old coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, told me that most players have until they’re 19 to significantly improve the technique on their strokes. After that, grips and strokes get ingrained and it’s tougher to make changes. Coco is one of the rare players who has tried to alter her grips—the most fundamental element of any shot—even as she’s playing tournaments. Her success at it varies from day to day, and she knows that the result of any one match isn’t always the best indicator of her progress.

“Overall I feel like, I mean, it’s not as bad as it seems,” she said of her current status after her loss to Bencic.

“I lost 6-4 in the third in the fourth round against a tough opponent who’s coming off a 500 win. Obviously I wanted to do better, want to have better results, but it’s not something I can crush myself on. I’m trying to do better, and that’s all I can do. I’m trying to work on things in practice, and unfortunately right now it's not translating how I’d like to.”

I think sometimes in sports you want to just stay on the high and kind of ride that wave, but especially with this sport, a season as long as tennis, it’s kind of impossible to always be on that high wave, and there’s going to be some low moments I think. Just trying to stick through those tough moments and get better through them. Coco Gauff

Gauff says she wishes he could celebrate her birthday by playing an Indian Wells quarterfinal. But her mindset right now is fitting for someone crossing into adulthood. On the one hand, since her debut splash in 2019, she hasn’t turned into the next dominant American champion, or the next Serena, and she may never be that. On the other hand, she has become a Slam champion and a Top 5 player, and has accepted her weaknesses and—the mark of a champion—found ways to win despite them.

Maybe most important, Gauff has learned not to expect perfection, or for anything to come easily or quickly. She’s more than ready to be a grown up.