Gauff struggles with new serve, holds on for win at US Open - ESPN

NEW YORK — Coco Gauff's first match since enlisting someone to help with her shaky serving got off to a rocky start at the US Open on Tuesday night. She double-faulted in the very first game — and a total of 10 times. She got broken in that game, too — and a total of six times.

The only numbers that truly counted in the end, of course, were the ones on the Arthur Ashe Stadium scoreboard, and those showed that the No. 3-seeded Gauff eventually held on for a 6-4, 6-7 (2), 7-5 victory over Ajla Tomljanovic to reach the second round at Flushing Meadows.

«It wasn't the best,» Gauff said, «but I'm happy to get through.»

It did not come easily. Not at all. Gauff twice led by a break in the second set but couldn't end things. She went up 5-3 in the third and served for the victory at 5-4, but double-faulted twice in a row and missed a pair of forehands to make it 5-all.

That could have been too much to take. Instead, Gauff steadied herself, broke right back, then was able to serve it out on her second chance to do so, nearly three full hours after the contest began.

«I had so many chances.… I was just like, 'Eventually, one of these is going to go my way,'» she said.

Gauff, who won the first of her two Grand Slam titles at the 2023 US Open as a teenager, added Gavin MacMillan to her coaching team shortly before the start of this tournament. MacMillan is a biomechanics expert who helped current No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka retool her serve a few years ago, and he was in the first row of Gauff's guest box, seated right in front of her mother.

After beating Tomljanovic, Gauff called her practices with MacMillan «really tough» and «mentally exhausting.»

«I'm trying to improve with each match,» she said.

The problem for Gauff, in a