By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Saturday May 17, 2025
Maybe a difficult loss to Jasmine Paolini in Saturday’s Rome final is not the worst thing in the world for Coco Gauff.
The American committed 55 unforced errors in her 6-4, 6-2 defeat at the hands of the Italian, but Gauff still became the youngest player since 2009 to reach the final of Madrid and Rome. She feels that if she takes the lessons learned from those two events, and ups her level a little more, a maiden Roland-Garros title could be hers.
“I think it’s both confidence and motivation to do better,” the 21-year-old said after her loss on Saturday at the Foro Italico. “Hopefully I can get to the final in Roland-Garros and maybe the ‘third time is a charm’ thing is a real thing.”
Gauff, who defeated Zheng Qinwen in an epic battle in the semifinals, says she isn’t taking her losses lightly, but she isn’t overreacting to them, either.
“Overall I lost to two quality opponents, Aryna in Madrid and Jasmine here. So yeah, I think I have a lot to improve, a lot that I can work on.”
thank you rome ❤️🥲 i’ll come back stronger pic.twitter.com/lOfLG8zwsR
— Coco Gauff (@CocoGauff) May 17, 2025
According to on-site statistics, Gauff hit 137 unforced errors in her last two matches. She says it just means that she can be better in Paris.
“I made the final with those errors,” she said. “Made the final maybe not playing my best tennis. It just gives me confidence that if I can find that good form heading into Roland Garros, I can do well there.”
Gauff is 11-3 on clay in 2025 and 20-5 lifetime at Roland-Garros, where she reached the final in 2022 and the semifinal in 2024.
The 21-year-old Florida native says she was trying to be aggressive to keep Paolini from playing her kind of match. Her efforts backfired, however. She has now lost both of her meetings on the European clay this year against the Italian, who became the first woman from her country to win the Rome title in 40 years.
“I knew today I was trying to be more aggressive because I felt like if I was being passive, she would run me across the court,” Gauff said.
