Matt Walsh
MELBOURNE, Australia — Women’s third-seeded Coco Gauff’s bid for a maiden Australian Open title was thwarted by Spain’s Paula Badosa, who defeated her in the quarterfinals on Tuesday. Defeated the American player in straight sets 7-5, 6-4.
At times it felt like Gauff was facing two opponents; the 11th seed Badosa and herself, making an alarming number of unforced errors and having difficulty controlling her serve.
After reaching the semi-finals in Melbourne last year, Gauff failed to achieve the feat in 2025, making it the third consecutive Grand Slam semi-final for the world number three.
Gauff can’t find rhythm with her racket or serve
Wrong, wrong, wrong. That will be Goff’s takeaway from the quarterfinal loss and the tournament. She made more unforced errors than four of her five opponents in Melbourne and continued her double fault against Badosa in the afternoon.
Of course, that can happen when you decide the game and the game depends on your racket, but against Badosa, mistakes played a large part in the impact. She made 41 unforced errors, including a tournament-high 28 forehand errors.
This was the second straight game in which Gauff was frustrated by her mistakes: After losing the first set to Badosa, Gauff struggled to refocus and immediately lost her first service game of the second set , a 13-minute, 8-2 marathon that ended with Gauff making an ugly unforced forehand error, giving Badosa an advantage she was unwilling to relinquish.
“I feel like I’ve made a lot of money [of errors]especially on the Internet. Yeah, I think the timing was a little off. I think I almost hit some shots too far forward, maybe a little too far back,” Goff told the media after the loss.
“I felt like I created a lot of points, you know, well, just the last ball, I mean, there was one at 40-15 that I thought I missed the net. Yeah, there were a lot of mistakes. That [forehand] side. “
Gauff also leads the women’s field in double faults, with 35, more than twice as many as the next-highest quarterfinalist (Emma Navarro with 17; Elena Svitto Lina and Madison Keys have 15).
Her serve-to-win, serve-to-kill style often worked, and the power and ability to deliver aces really earned her a lot of free-serve points. But in the crucial second set against Badosa, Gauff’s serve hit rate was only 56% and her second serve scoring rate was only 24%, which caused disaster late in the game.
“I have to be aggressive. I feel like that’s when I play my best. That’s how I’ve won most of my matches the last few months by being aggressive,” she said.
Gauff continues to work on her mental game
Gauff was cagey in her post-match press conference, saying she was “obviously disappointed but not completely devastated.”
For the past six to nine months, she has been trying to break away from the expectations of others and focus on her own inner expectations.
“Yeah, I think you just have to realize that most coaches on the internet have never coached anyone at my level or never played a game. So it’s one of those things. It’s easier to look at it from the outside, you know, When you don’t hear commentators, you hear people saying, ‘Oh, she should do this, or he should do that,'” she said.
“I do that even when I’m watching the game. Obviously it’s different when you’re on the field. I think that’s really what I take away from it is that I’m the guy on the field, I’m the one who takes things with a grain of salt if people want to say it, so I don’t think it’s a bad thing.
“I’m proud of myself, that’s all I can say. I promise I will continue to do my best to improve and meet the expectations I have for myself and the expectations of others… I can’t control it.” “
As for her immediate future? Gauff said she will not pursue ranking points this season, but will enter the Grand Slam as her biggest goal in 2025.
“I’m going to go home and take a break. I’ve basically been playing a lot of tennis since the end of last year. So, yeah, take a week off or something like that and then go back to work and get better,” she said of what’s next weeks.
“I don’t think Doha and Dubai are a priority…Obviously the next thing is Roland Garros, so try to make progress.”
Don’t Discount Badosa
The former world No. 2 said she is playing better tennis now than before after a back injury hampered her performance in 2023 and 2024, causing her to slip down the rankings and drop out of the top 100.
That shows up not just against Goff, but across all games. The Spaniard has only been pushed to three sets in this tournament, the third round against Marta Kostyuk, and has otherwise looked very comfortable so far.
“Do I feel like I’m back where I belong? Yes, absolutely,” she said after Tuesday’s game. “I mean, since I came back to Australia last year, my goal was what I said here last January, I wanted to be the comeback player this year. And I achieved that. When I started this year, I also said “I want to be one of the best players in the world and prove that, show that, and that’s my goal this year.”
It was her first career victory over a top-10 opponent (she entered the day at 0-3) and now in her first Grand Slam semifinal, Badosa has a chance to become the first since Gabin· The first Spanish woman to reach a Grand Slam final since Garbine Muguruza in Melbourne in 2020.
She will face either Aryna Sabalenka or Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in Thursday’s semifinals.
