Sabalenka: Two Keys to Rebuilding Serve with Coach MacMillan

By Richard Pagliaro | Friday, August 222, 2025Photo credit score: Al Bello/Getty

The service field as soon as shrunk to the scale of a mail field for Aryna Sabalenka.

She simply couldn’t make the supply match.

World No. 1 Sabalenka solved her service woes a number of years again working with biomechanical coach Gavin MacMillan.

On Wednesday, Coco Gauff, who leads the WTA Tour in double faults, started working with MacMillan in an effort to restore her wayward serve. Gauff hit 43 double faults in three matches in Montreal, together with a career-high 23 double faults in a three-set win over Danielle Collins.

Reigning US Open champion Sabalenka met the media in Flushing Meadows right this moment and endorsed MacMillan’s teaching and his ability rebuilding her serve. Sabalenka stated it’s necessary to notice each participant responds in another way.

“I’m actually grateful for his assist throughout actually powerful occasions. For me, he actually helped me with the serve,” Sabalenka stated of MacMillan. “I actually respect him for all the things.

“, everyone seems to be completely different. I used to be actually determined for modifications, and I used to be prepared to vary no matter, to vary my serve and to get higher and to lastly, you recognize, get again on monitor with my serve.”

In her US Open apply periods this week, MacMillan has been engaged on Gauff’s swing aircraft on each her serve and forehand, which she hits with an excessive western grip and typically spins it brief within the courtroom.

The 2-time Australian Open champion Sabalenka stated the restore course of took “a few weeks” with MacMillan.

“So for me, it was mainly, like, couple of weeks, and I used to be form of fastened,” Sabalenka stated. “However everyone seems to be completely different, and I want them each the easiest and hopefully all the things can work out nicely for them.”

The US Open prime seed stated there are two key elements to fixing the serve:

1. Trusting the work on the apply courtroom and transferring it to match play and

2. Placing within the repetitions so the streamlined served movement turns into muscle reminiscence.

Working with MacMillan, Sabalenka stated, she felt virtually instant enchancment on her serve.

“For me wasn’t actually exhausting, as a result of I attempted actually all the things, and nothing would assist me to repair my serve,” Sabalenka stated. “It was the final step earlier than I’d say, Okay, bye-bye, tennis. I used to be so determined, so I wasn’t actually doubting my resolution.

“The second we begin working, I felt like, Okay, there’s something. I positively have a greater feeling on my serve. And I simply trusted the method, trusted myself. Like the primary match I performed, I already felt the distinction and I felt, Okay, I’m getting there. So for me was simply it was about repetitions, a bit little bit of a time, and, like, full dedication to no matter he was saying.”