Brad Gilbert, a former No.4-ranked player on the ATP Tour with 20 titles, signed on to coach Andre Agassi in March of 1994. Later that year Agassi won the US Open.

In July 2003, Gilbert took on Andy Roddick. In two months, Roddick would win his only major title, in New York.

Back in early August, Gilbert joined Coco Gauff’s team. Less than six weeks later, the 19-year-old broke through to win the US Open for her first Grand Slam title.

Do you see a common thread?

“I think for me with BG, I have a lot more confidence in my game,” Gauff said in New York. “People can say you play good or the opposite, but I think hearing it from someone who probably has seen countless of my matches and worked with some of the best players in the game, I think you just really believe it.

“I don’t think the message has changed for me, it’s more about how the message was relayed to me. I think hearing that from his perspective helps a lot.”

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Said Gilbert: “I like to think I have an easy language to say it.”

And now, understandably, there will be a brief pause as Gauff and her team enjoy several weeks off. The rest of the way, she’ll probably play only the China Open in Beijing and the WTA Finals in Cancun, Mexico.

After a few days at home, the coach was heading up to the Brad Gilbert Tennis Nation shop in Greenbrae, California north of San Francisco.

Gilbert said he’d be on hand in Beijing and Cancun, but what about next year?

“Umm, I hope so,” he said, laughing. “We’re working on it.”

And what of the much-discussed Gauff forehand -- will there be time in the offseason to change her extreme western grip?

“You can’t just change a grip without changing the arc of the swing, so that’s a big change,” he said. “My guess is, from what we’ve seen, we don’t need to.

“When I started with Andy Murray [in 2006], everybody was telling me, ‘He’s just a pusher.’ And yet he wins.

“Everybody mentions the forehand criticism about Coco, and yet she wins. I’m certainly not worried about it in any way, shape or form.”

Gilbert, back home in Malibu, California after a scalding summer run with Gauff, quickly mentions that Agassi, Roddick and Gauff are all happiest on the hard courts employed by the US Open.

But there’s also a self-referential flashback to 1989 when Gilbert had the best summer of his career. After reaching the final in Washington, D.C. in July, he won three tournaments in August -- Stratton Mountain, Vermont; the Livingston Open, New Jersey and the Cincinnati Open.

“Listen,” he said, “you always want to have a good summer. Andre, Andy and Coco were all playing on a good surface for themselves, in a good timeframe. You’re not thinking about the end result. I don’t even think about the round, but rather, ‘Here’s the opponent, and here’s the match.’

“Live the moment. That’s it.”

For Gauff, it’s been a matter of living the dream. Since Gilbert came on board, she’s won 18 of 19 matches -- including 12 straight -- and, in succession, a WTA 500, WTA 1000 and a Grand Slam.

This summer, the braintrust that supports Gauff -- parents Corey and Candi and TEAM8, her management agency -- made the joint decision to bring on 35-year-old Pere Riba, a former Spanish player, and the 62-year-old Gilbert. It was an eclectic pairing. Previously, Riba coached juniors from a base in Barcelona and WTA Tour players Zheng Qinwen and Arantxa Rus. Gilbert, of course, made a name coaching Agassi to six of his eight majors, Roddick, Andy Murray and, most recently, Kei Nishikori.

They became part of a formidable squad that included physiotherapist Maria Vago, fitness coach Stefan Dal Soglio and hitting partner Jarmere Jenkins, who previously worked with Serena Williams.

How do Gilbert and Riba divide the coaching duties?

“Pere is very detail-oriented,” Gilbert said. “He puts in a lot of structure for the practice and the warmups. And we discuss X’s and O’s -- it’s nice to bounce things off somebody else. A lot of times, we just do quick little bullet points for Coco.”

Gilbert said he has influenced Gauff in two major areas: Tactical tweaks and scouting reports. After only a few days of practicing in Washington D.C., he realized that was where he could contribute most.

“I never got so many texts for so many days, saying `Fix her forehand!’ ” Gilbert said. “Man, you don’t just fix something like that on the fly. I just felt like there were some little small changes that were very workable.

“Like returning serve from a lot deeper position. Sometimes using a little more shape on shots. Playing using your legs a little bit more. Footwork. Serve a little bigger at times. Decision-making.”

Gilbert, who lives for strategic X’s and O’s, has a terrific feel for a player’s strengths and weaknesses -- and how to exploit them.

“The scouting," Gauff said, “I think it’s incredible. He knows basically every player, probably just from commentating, knows how to play them. I think the scouting reports are quite accurate.”

Before the US Open final, Gilbert broke down the semifinal that Arya Sabalenka won against Keys, coming back from 5-3 down in the second set. He also watched the tape of the last two matches between Gauff and Sabalenka. Gilbert is an analog guy in a digital world. Unlike a number of coaches, he does not even consider the analytics now widely available.

What did he see in the Sabalenka matches?

“I coach from my gut,” Gilbert said. “I coach from feel. But there are a lot of things I learn when I watch matches. And players adjust. Those are some of the things the analytics don’t tell you. They give you all this data, but they don’t factor in a player’s strengths and weaknesses. And that the other player might do something different, other than what the data says.”

This US Open was particularly challenging from a coaching perspective. A series of roller coasters, said Gilbert, who also worked as an analyst for ESPN.

Three times -- against Laura Siegemund, Elise Mertens and Sabalenka -- Gauff came back after losing the first set. On four occasions, her matches went the three-set distance.

“But,” Gilbert said, “she did a lot of amazing problem-solving, she was incredibly resilient. Against Sabalenka, I feel like the match really changed at 1-all deuce in the third set, when Coco hit a backhand crosscourt pass and the crowd erupted. And you could kind of see on the changeover that things were changing a little bit.

“And then she got a break in the next game and the first lead in the match and the crowd kind of went crazy again. And then, all of sudden, in your mind there’s a way back now.”

Afterward, Gilbert embraced Gauff in the tunnel under Arthur Ashe Stadium and told her, with typical enthusiasm, “I’m so proud of you!”

In a coaching world dominated by stats and strategies, it's Gilbert's knack for igniting a winner's spirit that sets him apart.