The one Coco Gauff stat I always look out for...

Thursday 28th November 2024

We’re pretty much in the tennis off-season now. But we really don’t have long to wait until the new 2025 campaign gets underway. In fact, the first balls will be hit in the first tournaments of next year’s calendar, while we’re still in December 2024.

I’ll be in touch before the off with your next free annual player report: Ones to Watch in 2025. Hitting your inbox in time to give you some Christmas-holiday reading material.

Looking back on the 2024 stats, as I have been recently. I just wanted to quickly tell you today about a few players to keep an eye on for ‘wobbly’ performances…

In other words, players that I find it hard to get behind and trust too often, when it comes to striking tennis bets…

One stat I always look out for is Double Faults.

The way I see it, if a player is regularly racking up more double faults in a match than aces… or coughing up doubles faults at high-pressure moments… limply flopping the second serve into the range of the opponent… or sending serves erratically long, wide, or into the net…

Then that tells us something about the player. Be it nerves… technique… or (lack of) big-match mentality…

The caveat with some of the worst offenders for double faults - especially in the women’s game - is that power players such as world no.3 Coco Gauff, or no.11 Danielle Collins, can often redeem themselves from double-fault woes by the sheer number of other winning shots that they manage to fire off.

In other words, attacking, high-stakes tennis can pay off: if you have the ability to execute the game-plan more times than not, over and over again. And that’s easier said than done…

It might seem harsh of me to throw criticism the way of Coco Gauff. The American won the US Open as a teenager in 2023. She won the end-of-season 2024 WTA Finals this month. And at no.3 in the rankings, Coco is out in front as the youngest player in the women’s (or men’s) world top 10.

However…

If I was in the Gauff coaching camp, I’d be asking the hard questions. Such as: how many more trophies would the 20-year-old already have, if it wasn’t for those morale-sapping double faults?

Gauff has just finished the 2024 season in the unwanted position of women’s ‘world no.1’ for Most Double Faults…

With 430 total double faults recorded this year, Coco’s number sits clear of talented but erratic Ones to Watch regular Marta Kostyuk (world no.18 player), who is in 2nd place with 370. And the likeable but prone to nerves (and weak second serves), world no.9 Daria Kasatkina, with 316.

Now, if we convert those 2024 totals into the number of double faults per match, it’s actually Kostyuk who comes out the worst of those three players.

And while on paper, Gauff’s average of 6 double faults per match isn’t too terrifying. The big problem is that when Coco has a bad day on serve, it tends to be a very bad one. And costly, too..

Remember: every double fault you make is a completely free point gifted to your opponent. And top-level tennis matches are often decided by the smallest of margins, with Total Points Won tallies often settling very close to the 50-50 mark.

For example, when Gauff played in the semi final of the big, ‘Masters 1000’ level WTA Wuhan event against Aryna Sabalenka last month. The young American piled up a huge 21 double faults - a worrying number that borders on the embarrassing for a match between two of the world’s top three players…

WTA Wuhan 2024 - Semi Final:

Again, I’m not trying to be overly harsh here. With Gauff, it’s a case of: think of what you could achieve if you removed these double faults (indeed, Coco’s excellent serving was a big driving force behind her one Grand Slam trophy-win to date).

In general, the fact is that every double fault hands a bit more initiative, momentum, and confidence to your opponent on the other side of the net…

In that Wuhan example, Gauff actually won more Total Games in the match than world no.1 Sabalenka (14-13). She came out on top in the aces battle, too (4-2). But Sabalenka - who it’s worth noting finished 1st for Most Double Faults in the official WTA stats from 2020 through to 2022 - gave up just two doubles in that Wuhan semi final.

The overall Total Points Won stats in that match were also in favour of Gauff (100-98 = 51%-49%). But yet, she lost. Sabalenka prevailed, 1-6, 6-4, 6-4 - and the Belarusian went on to win the Wuhan final and take home the trophy.

In her defence, Gauff can rightly argue that she soon turned things around: she beat Sabalenka in their very next match-up, another semi final - at the WTA Finals this month. This time, the American served up just two double faults. What a difference…

From a betting point of view. Positioned as we are with many stats to peruse, and a formbook of past results to consult. What we don’t and can’t have access to is a player’s true mindset going into any given tournament or match (!). And for me, that makes someone with the double-faults record of Coco hard to trust in the betting markets on a regular basis. Especially when such a highly-ranked, high-profile player as Gauff is likely to be priced up by the bookies as a short favourite. We just don’t know if she’s going to turn up and have a good serving day, or a bad one.

WTA 2024 - Double Faults (DF) - Top 5:

Double Faults are just one way that I look at a player as a betting proposition. I’ve got lots more to say on the matter, ahead of the upcoming 2025 season, the Australian Open in January - and beyond. Stay tuned.

Enjoy the tennis…

Best wishes,

Oliver Upstone

Ones to Watch