“Too many commercials?” McEnroe suggests Gauff needs balance in her schedule.

John McEnroe suggested that Coco Gauff might make changes to her team after failing to defend her US Open title. The 20-year-old American was aiming to be the first player to defend the Flushing Meadows title since Serena Williams in 2014 but fell in the fourth round to her compatriot Emma Navarro.

This was not the only disappointing result for Gauff in recent months. At Wimbledon, she also exited in the fourth round, suffered early losses at the Canadian Open and Cincinnati, and did not win any medals at the Olympic Games, despite being one of the favorites in both singles and doubles.

In 2023, Gauff had an extraordinary US Open Series, winning three titles, but this year she could not replicate those performances, leading to a significant drop in the rankings, from No. 2 to No. 6. The American acknowledged her disappointment after her US Open elimination: “It’s not the summer that I want,” said Gauff. “I feel like there’s 70 other players in the draw that would love to have the summer that I had, even though it’s my least probably done well during this time of the year.

“So many people want to be in the fourth round. So many people want to make the Olympics. So many people want to be the flag bearer. It’s perspective,” she added. “Obviously because I’m wanting to reach a different level, it is disappointing, but I’m not going to beat myself up and be, like, this was so bad.”

Now, 7-time Grand Slam champion John McEnroe has given his opinion on Gauff’s current form, suggesting that the 20-year-old might make decisions regarding her team: “I don’t know about what is going on in her team, but I suspect there will be changes, that’s my guess,” McEnroe stated. “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 former world No. 1 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,” he emphasized. “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 added. “You can tell she’s not feeling that right now.”

McEnroe also suggested that the Olympic Games in the middle of the season affected several players during this hardcourt swing due to constant surface changes in a short amount of time. “You can see that all the players who were at the Olympics are struggling physically and mentally,” he reflected.

“It’s tough to go from clay to grass, back to clay for the Olympics, and then straight onto the hard courts. That’s not easy. You look at all the guys that won the medals at the Olympics, and they lost early at the US Open, especially in the men’s draw,” the 4-time US Open champion said. “You look at Jessica Pegula not playing the Olympics, and she got on a roll on the hard courts, but players like Iga (Swiatek) struggled after playing in Paris.”