Coco Gauff’s Long Game

At the start of her first-round match in the U.S. Open, this past Tuesday, Coco Gauff—the winner of the U.S. Open two years ago, the reigning champion of the French Open, and the No. 3 player in the world—tossed up the ball as she began her service motion, and then, thinking better of it, let the ball fall. Ordinarily, no one would note this sort of thing. Tournaments don’t keep stats of caught tosses, which are perfectly legal. But this was not an ordinary situation.