Coco Gauff’s coach Brad Gilbert is generally one of the best minds going around in tennis. But a recent comment he made about his pupil, isn’t being well received by the tennis world. Gilbert, who tried to justify his comment, simply sounded salty concerning Gauff’s loss at the French Open 2024.
Brad Gilbert has been doing commentary for ESPN at Wimbledon. Whilst commentating on the Matteo Berrettini vs Jannik Sinner match, Gilbert, out of nowhere, made a remark concerning Iga Swiatek, Naomi Osaka and Coco Gauff.
Gilbert said that had Naomi Osaka beaten Iga Swiatek early on at the French Open, Coco Gauff could’ve won the 2nd Grand Slam of her career. To provide more context, Osaka and Swiatek faced each other in the second round of the Roland Garros this year. The game went very close by Swiatek standards since she steamrolled all her next opponents.
Swiatek won 7-6 (7-1), 1-6, 7-5 against Osaka. But Gilbert believes if the American-Japanese star won that last match point, the tournament’s course could’ve turned out to be in favor of Coco Gauff. Of course, Swiatek then dominantly beat Marie Bouzkova, Anastasia Potapova, Marketa Vondrousova, and Gauff herself in the semifinals.
Gilbert tried to emphasize his comments with logic, but it sounded nothing more than a coach making a biased call. The road to winning a Grand Slam is long and hard. Had Swiatek lost that day, there wasn’t any guarantee that Gauff would’ve surely won. Osaka could’ve won, or she could’ve lost to any of the other opponents Swiatek defeated, and they could’ve won it.
Tennis is pretty much played in the big moments and the subtlest of momentum shifts can decide the fate of a match. People can predict but nobody can assure that someone will definitely win. Gauff already has poor record against Swiatek too, having won just 1 match out of their 11 encounters so far. That doesn’t help Gilbert’s case either.
If one were to question the fate of a player’s winning journey at any tournament by altering the previous match results, then many could even question Gauff’s 2023 US Open win. As a veteran coach, Brad Gilbert should know better that no one wins tournaments with ifs and buts.
How Did Fans React to Brad Gilbert’s Comments on Coco Gauff and Iga Swiatek?
After Brad Gilbert’s comment went viral on X, tennis fans went crazy. Fans, expectedly so, had wild reactions to the super coach’s opiniopn. Here’s how many of them reacted:
Well If Iga hadn’t lost to Penko in USO’23, she would have six slams right now. Same logic.
— gabriela (@xxxgwxx) July 3, 2024
does it really matter? It still is nothing but speculation, not a fact. If we’re talking about this year’s RG, what would have happened, if Sabalenka didn’t have cramps in her match against Andreeva?
— gabriela (@xxxgwxx) July 3, 2024
Let me tell you if Serena didn’t lose 10 Slam’s finals, she would have 33 slams in her account.
— Nati | #6 (@Nati_xo5) July 3, 2024
If Coco was not beaten by Iga over and over again she would have been world number 1 today.
— FanTomas Szary (@t_stanislawski) July 3, 2024
Fans have put their own spin on various other tournament results which could’ve gone otherwise. They are justified in trying to set Brad Gilbert straight. It would be interesting to see now, if Coco Gauff, Iga Swiatek or Naomi Osaka respond to this tweet in some way or the other.
At present, Coco Gauff is playing women’s singles and doubles at Wimbledon 2024 while Naomi Osaka has been knocked out of the singles event. At the time of writing this report, Iga Swiatek was leading 6-4, 2-1 against Petra Martic in the second round.
