Rennae Stubbs believes that Coco Gauff could do with taking a leaf out of Serena Williams’ book and shut down her season to work on her forehand.

After the American’s serving issues appeared to spiral out of control last year, Gauff hired biomechanics specialist Gavin MacMillan, who was instrumental in fixing Aryna Sabalenka’s service problems on her way to the No 1 ranking.

The pair have worked together for 13 months now, and the 22-year-old is slowly but surely improving the consistency of that delivery. Now, Serena’s current coach, Stubbs, thinks the two-time major winner’s forehand is the next shot that needs attending to.

Last Autumn, the Australian recommended that the two-time major winner should have an extended off-season to iron out the kinks in her game. Stubbs has not particularly changed her tune ahead of the Beijing Open, and thinks that an extra break will not hurt Gauff’s Australian Open chances in early 2027.

She said on The Rennae Stubbs Tennis Podcast, “That’s why I suggested last year that Coco take the whole Fall off and work on her serve.

More WTA Tour News

Want more from Tennis365? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for tennis coverage you can trust.

“I think it’s been such a long period to make it into a shot that is a little bit more reliable, which it was this year. But I am sure Gavin MacMillan would have loved to have taken the entire Fall to work on her forehand as well.

“The forehand is still the issue. She went and won Wuhan last year, but I still think it would have been better to take those two-three months off. Serena used to take the Fall off all the time and then come back for the Australian Open and usually win the tournament.”

To Stubbs’ point, Serena essentially ended her season after the 2006 US Open and won the Australian Open a few months later. In 2008, following her US Open triumph, she played just one tournament before the WTA Tour Finals and then won the 2009 Australian Open. Serena repeated the trick the following year.

Stubbs explained how if a player wants to make changes, it is not easy to do during the season, particularly when tournaments come thick and fast. And to compound matters, with the season being so long (January-November), many players don’t get the sufficient breaks they need.

The former world No 1 women’s doubles player continued, “There’s nothing that’s going to stop you from playing well in Australia if you take the time, but it is really hard to fix something that needs fixing in the middle of the season.

“But you just tweak it every single time you’re practising, and hopefully, when the pressure is on in the match, you don’t let it affect you too much. But it is one of the reasons why this sport is so very difficult because there isn’t much of an off-season.”

WHAT NEXT? China Open withdrawals: 19 stars OUT as Alex Eala joined by two players on growing list