US Open: Aggression is the key for Caroline Garcia

The 28-year-old Frenchwoman reached her first Grand Slam semi-final at the US Open with a fluent win over teenage American Coco Gauff

Caroline Garcia knows when it all turned around for her: WTA 250 event in Bad Homburg in June, down 6-2 to Aliaksandra Sasnovich in the first round. “I was not playing good at all, trust me,” the Frenchwoman, 28, said. “At one moment you just say to yourself, ‘You have to go for it. You miss, you miss, but you have to do something’.”

Caroline Garcia celebrates after defeating Coco Gauff in the 2022 US Open (AFP)

She did something alright—won that match, and 30 of the next 34.

That includes the US Open quarter-final against French Open runner-up Coco Gauff, the Garcia show under lights at the Arthur Ashe Stadium (6-3, 6-4) too hot to handle for the American teen.

Her first semi-final at Flushing Meadows has come without dropping a set, and only 27 games conceded. It’s her best Grand Slam run. The 2017 French Open was the only time she had reached the last eight of a Slam.

Irrespective of the outcome against Ons Jabeur in the semi-final, this march is set to get the world No 17 back into the top 10 for the first time since October 2018. She started this year at 74, a steady three-year fall that had all of one WTA title, in 2019.

A first round defeat to a qualifier at the Australian Open and a second round exit in Paris was all gloom. Until Bad Homburg, where Garcia found her groove.

Beating Canadian Bianca Andreescu in the final, Garcia clinched that grasscourt tournament, her first title in three years. A Round of 16 at Wimbledon followed, then a semi-final in Lausanne and quarter-final in Palermo. In Poland, she won another WTA 250 title, beating top-ranked Iga Swiatek in the last eight.

It was in the tune-up in Cincinnati that Garcia truly laid the marker for the US Open. She went from qualifier to champion at the WTA 1000 event, crushing three top-10 players before the final win over Petra Kvitova, who borrowed a song title to describe Garcia’s recent form: Girl on fire.

A blaze that hasn’t been doused in 13 matches.

“I'm just trying to focus on my game, on what I like to do and how is the best way for me to play tennis,” Garcia said after beating Gauff. “The path is very clear right now—which direction I have to go under stress, pressure. I'm just trying to follow this path.”

That path wasn’t always clear in the past. Even when the twice doubles Slam champion was winning quite a few singles titles from 2014 to 2018, the year she achieved her best singles ranking of world No 4. Changing coaching staff late last year to team up with Bertrand Perret, who has worked with Jabeur and some other top players, helped.

“I’ve always been very aggressive, but when I was younger I was not able to play consistent at this level. But I had to accept that it is actually the only way for me. So if I have to do good I have to go that way,” Garcia said.

Not only with the serve—Garcia has won 93% of service games at this US Open—but also with the returns. She stands well inside the baseline to return serves. “You're playing someone off the bat, they’re standing on top of the baseline and ripping balls, it’s not easy,” Gauff, who was broken early in both the sets, said.

It’s more than just about the first strike. Garcia’s aggression has a more all-round element that helps win points. Against Gauff, she won eight of the 10 points involving nine or more shots and 13 of 16 points at the net.

Her big weapons come out under pressure. Down 0-30 serving 4-3 in the second set, Garcia produced a forehand winner, an ace, induced a Gauff forehand error and an ace.

“A lot of girls play hard, play strong, take the ball early,” Garcia said. “I’m just trying to do it every single (point)—a little bit faster, a little bit earlier.”