AUSTRALIAN OPEN

February 9, 2021

Coco Gauff

Press Conference

C. GAUFF/J. Teichmann

6-3, 6-2

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Talk to us about your match today and how you've progressed over the last week.

COCO GAUFF: Yeah, last week we had a difficult match, and I think it was 7-6 in the third, long match, and today we're both familiar with each other's games, obviously, so I just knew what I had to do and I just came out there, decided to play my tennis and tried to mix in things that she doesn't like to play.

Q. Can you talk about how you feel coming into this tournament this year? Do you feel some pressure after what you did here last year, or do you feel like you're kind of under the radar a little bit?

COCO GAUFF: No, I don't feel any pressure. I mean, obviously you want to do as well or even better than the year before, but I try not to think about it and just take it one match at a time.

This is only my second Australian Open, so I mean, I'm just going out there and having fun, and today I put way less pressure on myself than I did last week and you can kind of see how the match played that I kind of played a little bit more free than I was last week. I learned a lot from the summer series here, and I'm happy to take what I learned last week into this week.

Q. How would you describe Patrick as a coach?

COCO GAUFF: Yeah, I mean, he definitely gives me a lot of advice. He's giving more advice to my dad to tell me so there's not so much voices in my head, I guess, because everybody has an opinion, and everybody wants to help, but it's not good to have too many people to listen to. Most of the stuff goes through my dad, but obviously he tells me some things directly, too. But it's good to have someone that's -- I mean, even my dad, he's a great coach, but he's still learning, as well. I'm his only player he's ever worked with. Patrick has a little more coaching experience than my dad, so it's good to have an outsider kind of tell you what you need to work on.

Q. You've got Svetlana up next. What are your thoughts heading into that?

COCO GAUFF: I'm going to go out there and have fun and compete. I haven't really thought that far ahead. She's a great player and I know it's going to be a tough match, but I'm just going to embrace the opportunity and try to play well under the pressure.

Q. Can I go back to your dad? Is he someone who is usually, because as you said he's learning as he goes, as you are, that he's open to new information, or is it a credit to Patrick that he's able to tell your dad stuff and he does have an open mind about it?

COCO GAUFF: Yeah, obviously my dad is open -- you're always open to learning. He's always open to learning. But he's also a smart guy so he knows what's right and what's wrong. Yeah, I mean, he takes advices from other coaches, too, not just Patrick, but that's kind of like everyone on tour I feel like when you have a young player, also there's some other young players on tour, other coaches try to help each other out because you just want to see someone young do well.

So yeah, he takes advice from everyone, but I mean, he knows tennis really well, and he knows what's right and what's wrong.

Q. How are you spending your time in Australia when you're not here at the center? Are you getting out?

COCO GAUFF: Yeah, I think -- was it yesterday or day before yesterday? One of the days we went mini golfing at Holey Moley, which is pretty fun. It's probably my favorite mini golfing spot in the world because, first of all, it's indoors and in Florida it's hot, so we don't do too much of that, but it has really cool courses. I came in last. My whole team went, and I came in last twice, and my hitting partner Enzo, he won every time, so we're going again today at 6:00 or 7:00 today to get a rematch, and my goal is to not come in last.

Q. Talk about your mini-golfing skills.

COCO GAUFF: Apparently I play mini golf like tennis. I hit the ball too hard. I think that I'm going to keep doing that because that's just how I like to play, and even though it's not working, one of these days it's going to work and I'm just going to be like, I told you, power is the right way.

Q. How would you describe the state of your second serve, and what's most important to you being successful with that serve?

COCO GAUFF: I think I worked on it in the off-season, and it's probably the best I feel so far in my career. I know last year I struggled with double faults with it, but today I think I had three double faults, and that's fine because I also get a lot of non-returnables on my second serve and as a player I know sometimes I like to go for my serve and I'm okay with missing it. Last year I feel like most of my misses were in the net, and I wasn't accelerating enough and I worked on it in the off-season, and I think it kind of shows.

Today I don't think I got broken, if I'm correct, if I'm right. I served pretty well today, and I'm hoping to continue that this week.

Q. Was there one particular thing you needed to work on to get it to a point where you are confident in it?

COCO GAUFF: I mean, it was all mental really. The change that I made was just accelerating more, but that's just a change you can do in a second. It didn't take like weeks of changing the serve. I didn't change my motion, I didn't really change anything, it was just my mindset going in on the serve. I felt like because I knew I had a double faulting problem, like everybody knew, I kept feeding into it. But it's gotten better and it's no longer a problem, and it's not costing me matches like it used to.