New York (AFP) – Coco Gauff shrugged off her early round struggles to move into the last 16 of the US Open on Saturday with a straight-sets victory over Poland’s Magdalena Frech. Gauff, who had been reduced to tears during a laboured win over Donna Vekic on Thursday, produced her most polished performance of the tournament to down 28th seed Frech 6-3, 6-1 in one hour 13 minutes.
The American third seed’s preparations for the US Open were thrown into turmoil when she took the decision to shake up her coaching team in an effort to improve her service game, just days before competition got under way. While her serve remained a problem in the opening rounds, Gauff got it working smoothly in Saturday’s match on the Arthur Ashe Stadium court. She conceded just two break points during the entire match, and was broken only once, while winning 71 percent of her points on first serve.
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“It’s been an emotional week, but I think I needed those tough moments to move forward,” Gauff said afterwards, later describing her performance as a “step in the right direction.” Gauff said that while she hoped to avoid a repeat of Thursday’s tearful display against Vekic in future, she had reflected positively on the performance. “For me, I just realized that I don’t want that moment to happen again on court for sure,” Gauff said. “I don’t want to show weakness in moments. But after the match, I was thinking, maybe it’s not a weakness. It’s just showing the things that happen in my head and not keeping it inside to the point where I can’t play. Today I felt a lot lighter going on court, and I hope to continue feeling that light weight for the rest of the time here.”
Gauff, the 2023 US Open champion, went ahead early, breaking Frech on her first service game before holding to take a 3-0 lead. Gauff was broken in the fifth game to allow Frech back into the match at 3-3, but the home hope promptly rattled off the next three games to take the first set. Gauff then sprinted away with the second set, breaking Frech in the third game and holding to make it 3-1. She then broke Frech twice more to wrap up a victory which sends her into a fourth round showdown against Japan’s Naomi Osaka.
The match is a repeat of the duo’s first meeting at the US Open in 2019, when Osaka overpowered the then 15-year-old Gauff in straight sets. “I remember it was a tough moment for me because it was a hyped-up match,” Gauff said of that 2019 defeat. “I guess I put way too much pressure on myself thinking I maybe had a chance in that moment to actually do something, which I definitely did, but I think it was just I felt more expectation that I should than maybe belief.”
© 2024 AFP
