It topped off a miserably brief grass court season for the 21-year-old, who has not even won a set in her two matches played, beaten by Wang Xinyu 6-3, 6-3 in Berlin and then Dayana Yastremska 7-6, 6-1 at SW19.
Gauff became only the third woman in Open era history to win Roland Garros and then lose in the first round of Wimbledon, but acknowledged her inability to transition, physically and psychologically, had cost her.
"It's the win of her career." No.1 Court is stunned as Dayana Yastremska defeats No.2 seed Coco Gauff 7-6(3), 6-1 #Wimbledon pic.twitter.com/pZYylWHcs8
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 1, 2025“I maybe could have used more matches. It’s like finding the puzzle.”
A tricky decision to make
Could she have played last week in Bad Homburg or Eastbourne instead? Who knows if it would have helped. Both their champions also lost in the first round of Wimbledon.
In fact in the 57 years of Open era history, only 11 players have managed to win both Roland Garros and Wimbledon in the same year, and every single one of them is considered a great.
The 12 players to have won the “Channel Slam”
Rod Laver (1969) Margaret Court (1970) Billie Jean King (1972) Chris Evert (1974) Bjorn Borg (1978, 1979, 1980) Martina Navratilova (1982, 1984) Steffi Graf (1988, 1993, 1995, 1996) Serena Williams (2002, 2015) Rafael Nadal (2008, 2010) Roger Federer (2009) Novak Djokovic (2021) Carlos Alcaraz (2024)“I really just think it’s that in this turnaround, I think this slam out of all of them is the most prone to have upsets because of how quick the turnaround is from clay.
Of the 11 to have done it, only two remain active and as Gauff well knows that is Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic.
Alcaraz was made to work hard by Fabio Fognini in his Wimbledon opener (Photo: PA)
For both, it worked, unusual though it looked from the outside. And that is a lesson Gauff can learn from them. Doing the “Channel Slam” is a puzzle, and one that needs a deeply personal solution. Both Alcaraz and Djokovic learned what worked for them, despite what everyone else said. Greats back there decisions, and Gauff’s greatness depends on a similar approach.
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square TENNIS'He's an 11 out of 10!' - has Emma Raducanu finally found her coach?
Read MoreIt’s strange to say given that it was here that she took like a duck to water to grand slam tennis, stunning her childhood hero Venus Williams on Wimbledon debut in 2019 having come through qualifying. She reached the fourth round that year, a result she matched 12 months ago, but one she has never bettered. This has turned out to be her weakest slam.
On the women’s side, only one woman has managed the double in the 21st century, the great Serena Williams. When she did it for the second time in 2015, she did not rush from Paris to London. She went back to Florida, and tried to destress.
“Then I started slowly just getting back into it, getting back into it. Mentally I was always thinking about, ‘Gosh, Wimbledon’s around the corner’. I’m sitting here like, ‘Wasn’t I just in France?’.
It does. But Serena adapted. The greats do. So will Coco.
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