Coco Gauff shares strange traits of ‘quirky’ coach behind her US Open success
Coco Gauff is enjoying the best summer of her career as she looks to keep things rolling at the US Open. Back into the quarter-final for a second year running, the American has some new faces in her box helping her along, including Brad Gilbert. Gauff opened up on her new mentor’s “quirky” traits including waking up at 3:30am.
Gauff has lost just one match since adding Gilbert to her coaching camp post-Wimbledon. The world No 6 picked up titles in Cincinnati and Washington last month and is looking to go one better by winning her home Grand Slam tournament.
While the 19-year-old has always had the game to win big titles, a new perspective from Gilbert has seemingly been the final piece of the puzzle over the last few weeks. While the tennis world is well acquainted with the 62-year-old – he’s a commentator for ESPN and previously coached Andy Murray and Andy Roddick – there are some new quirks Gauff as learned about Gilbert since they started working together.
“I was worried about being with the older person, to be honest, before I met Brad,” the five-time title winner said of her new coach after advancing to the US Open quarter-final. But Gauff has since found out that she had nothing to worry about.
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She continued: “He’s older but he still has the mind of, like, a 20-year-old, maybe even younger, a 10-year-old kid sometimes. The guy has offered me Jolly Ranchers. I don’t know if you knew this. My favourite Brad story is he played pretty much every match with a Jolly Rancher in his mouth.”
But the world No 6 hasn’t been eating the sweets on offer. “He’s been giving me Jolly Ranchers all the time. I take them but I don’t eat them. At this point I can’t have Jolly Ranchers every five minutes. So that’s my favourite Brad story,” she smiled.
The sweets weren’t the only thing that made an impression on Gauff, as she had also picked up on some other unusual characteristics in her new mentor. “He also doesn’t like even numbers,” she continued.
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“He only likes odd numbers. Whenever he says something, you ask him what time it is, he’s going to say 1:53 or 1:59. He won’t say 12 or something basic. That’s my favourite Brad story.
“He’s just a really quirky man. He doesn’t sleep. He wakes up at 3:30 every morning. He was doing this in D.C. He goes for walks. He also has been sending me crazy playlists of ’60s and ’70s bands, but I haven’t kept up with it.”
But the addition of Gilbert to Gauff’s team has been working a treat. Since they got together, the teenager’s only loss came against her doubles partner Jessica Pegula in the Canadian Open quarter-final. And she will be hoping things stay that way as she faces Jelena Ostapenko in the last eight of the US Open.
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