Behind world number 1, Aryna Sabalenka, the top seed and two-time defending champion of the Australian Open, no one on the Hologic WTA Tour arrived at Melbourne Park for the first Grand Slam tournament of the year with a better feeling than Coco Gauff.

Australian Open: Results | Schedule | Pulls

Undefeated at the start of the season without losing a set, in Team USA’s victory at the United Cup earlier this monthGauff has compiled an 18-2 record since the end of the US Open last summer, which included her second WTA 1000 victory in Beijing and her first year-end title at the WTA Finals presented by PIF in Riyadh last fall.

She has shown outstanding form during this time, claiming five top 10 victories – including wins over Sabalenka and Iga Swiatek in Saudi Arabia and another over Swiatek in the United Cup. However, such results can carry an inherent pressure, so a player may feel the expectation of repeating such results on the biggest stage of all.

But not if you’re Gauff. Ahead of her sixth Australian Open, the world number three says she feels the opposite – describing her attitude in the hunt for a second major title as “relaxed and relaxed”.

“I think for me it’s like, I know I played well, but you can’t always play well,” Gauff said ahead of her scheduled first-round match against fellow American and 2020 Australian Open winner Sofia Kenin Monday in Melbourne. “I know there will be some difficult moments in this tournament. Hopefully I can get through it.”

“But I think I’ll just go in, no pressure, I’ll just try to stay in the moment and enjoy it as much as I can. I’ve done that for the last few tournaments. So obviously the results were good. “But I’m just trying to learn to do that even if the results aren’t so good.”

It represents a complete reversal of how Gauff felt at the final Grand Slam tournament last year, where she was the defending champion and was knocked out in the fourth round by Emma Navarro – with 60 unforced errors and 19 double faults. That performance taught her a lot, she says, and gave her strength both at the end of the season and during preseason training with her new coaching team of Matt Daly and Jean-Christophe Faurel, who worked with Gauff, whom Daly hired in September.

“I think I just realized how important it is to win or lose a game,” she said. “As athletes, we get into trouble and losing feels like the end of the world and winning feels like something we should do, not something we should be grateful for. Nobody makes us feel like that except ourselves. I think I just realized it. “It’s never more important that I leave the court and say I did my best.

“I think every time I step on the court I just tell myself to do my best. If I miss a shot, most games are decided by a few points, sometimes they aren’t.”

Gauff was a semi-finalist in Melbourne last year before losing to Sabalenka and could face the world No. 1 again in the same round next week. But first she has to beat Kenin for the first time at a major. The older of the two Americans has beaten Gauff twice at majors: on her way to winning the title in Melbourne five years ago and in the first round at Wimbledon in 2023.