Brad Gilbert, 62, coaching Coco Gauff, 19, and somehow it works

At first glance, there’s no way this should have worked.

Brad Gilbert, at age 62, hadn’t coached top-level talent in more than a decade. Though Gilbert had kept close to the game by working as an ESPN commentator, he had little first-hand experience working with today’s young players. Gilbert is the first to admit his social media skills are suspect and his musical taste is oh-so-very 20th Century.

So when Coco Gauff’s parents first mentioned in July that they wanted her to meet with Gilbert, a former player who had coached Andre Agassi and Andy Roddick to wins in the U.S. Open in 1994 and 2003, the 19-year-old was less than enthused.

Said Gilbert: “She thinks I’m an old dude, which is fine.”

Said Gauff: “I was worried about being with an older person, to be honest.”

Well, score one for the old dudes. Gauff is plaing in her first U.S. Open semifinal Thursday night, having won 16 of her 17 matches since Gilbert joined her team. En route to the final four match against Karolina Muchova, Gauff won the 500-point event in Washington and her first Masters 1000 in Cincinnati, with her only defeat coming to Jessica Pegula in Canada.

It’s not like Gilbert has performed magic with Gauff. Rather, he’s been the Dumbledore to Gauff’s Harry Potter, meaning that he’s basically tweaked a few things and given a few pieces of advice in order to empower Gauff to be the best she can be.

“I’ll tell you Coco’s two best qualities, she’s incredibly humble and hard-working. She wants to get better,” Gilbert told Sky Sports. “I think I’ve helped her a lot with simple strategy and in-match, understanding her opponents’ strengths and weaknesses. And when you start with somebody on the fly, that’s what you can do most.”

Gilbert, the father of three young adults, apparently learned a thing or two from parenting that has helped him coach Gauff. Rather than being overly concerned with Gauff’s weaknesses when he was hired after her shocking first-round loss at Wimbledon, he decided to concentrate on her strengths.

“It’s not about if you’re trying to change somebody’s forehand or backhand,” he said. “And you cannot believe how many texts I got saying ‘fix this forehand’. Like, really? Last I checked, she does a lot of things really well. So you work with the things you have and you just try to get better.”

Gilbert did suggest a few minor adjustments. He particularly liked Gauff’s movement on the court and he thought she needed to take advantage of it.

“I felt like she played a little aggressively and points were a little to short,” he said. “So I felt like her best asset is being able to use more of the court, extending the points longer. And I maybe moved her back six, eight, nine feet on the return [of serve]. Because so many girls are up close so I’m just giving her more opportunity to use the things she does well.”

Gauff said in a press conference earlier in the week that Gilbert’s scouting reports are the best she’s ever seen and have really helped her prepare for every match. She believes that his experience as a commentator for ESPN has given him unique insight into the skills of many players on the tour. Gilbert, in a somewhat strange arrangement, has continued to work as a commentator for ESPN during the tournament when he is not in Gauff’s box.

Of course, there remains some generational differences. Gilbert sent her an inspirational playlist that included songs by Bruce Springsteen and the Grateful Dead. He said she had never heard of either.

He also struggles to master some things that come automatically to her — like social media. After Novak Djokovic entertained the U.S. Open crowd by singing “You have to fight for your right to party,” Gilbert intended to tweet out a link to the Beastie Boys. Unfortunately, he linked to an adult video site run by someone of a similar name. The mistake was quickly discovered, the post deleted and Gilbert tweeted out an apology.

Perhaps Gauff, who has more than a million followers on Instagram, might be able to thank her coach by giving him some social media pointers in the future.

Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.