Serena Williams and Aryna Sabalenka’s ‘Great Success’ Emerges as Biggest Motivation for Coco Gauff’s Persistence With Doubles Tennis

Playing doubles tennis is like having a refreshing break from the solitary intensity of the singles court. There is growing debate regarding single players either supporting the doubles category or standing against it. A lot of WTA stars, starting from Venus and Serena Williams to today’s stars Aryna Sabalenka and Elena Rybakina, have played doubles.

Recently, Coco Gauff, who has also played doubles alongside Jessica Pegula, shared the major upside of playing the game with a partner. Let’s take a look at what the 19-year-old American has to say about the advantages the double side of the sport carries.

Coco Gauff shares her insight on playing doubles tennis

The 19-year-old tennis star started her professional career by becoming a part of both the singles and doubles categories. While she has achieved success in both of them after losing the quarter-final singles round against Anna Kalinskaya in Indian Wells, in a post-match press conference, Coco Gauff opened up about the major advantage that comes with playing doubles events, while citing Serena Williams and Aryna Sabalenka as examples.

She stated, “Yeah, definitely. I think if you look at all — a lot, not all, but most of the top singles players in our sport, they’ve all had some success in doubles. Aryna, she played doubles. I think she has like two Grand Slams. Serena obviously had great success in doubles. I’m trying to think. Elena, Elena Rybakina, also, she played doubles a lot.” 

Gauff highlighted the legends from the past who have played doubles, and it has only made them better single players, giving them tough competition in all kinds of tournaments.

In tennis’ technical language, there are a lot of volleys involved in doubles, so one way or another, it improves the net game for singles players. But last year, the US Open champion clearly highlighted how this year she is going to maintain a distance from playing doubles, revealing other plans for the 2024 tennis season.

Gauff might play fewer doubles this year! 

The 19-year-old reached the quarter-final round of the Indian Wells doubles side with her partner, Pegula, last year. In a candid interview, Coco Gauff also talked about how playing doubles at every tournament is quite tough and shared her thoughts on playing it with the 30-year-old American.

Gauff stated, “But, yeah, honestly it just depends how I’m feeling. I will say next year I do want to play a little bit less doubles maybe after the Olympics, but it’s tough right now I feel like to just stop playing completely when you are doing well with someone who is from your same country, which you don’t see that in a lot of teams.”

Nevertheless, what are your thoughts on Gauff’s sharing her opinion on playing doubles? Do let us know in the comment section below.