2024 US Open •
NEW YORK -- Social media, as professional tennis players will attest, can often prove to be a toxic environment. Happily, there are exceptions.
The week before she began her defense of the US Open title, Coco Gauff got some valuable advice.
“Somebody commented on my TikTok,” Gauff explained. “And the comment said, `Why stress yourself out over it -- you’ve won literally and figuratively. Why stress yourself out over a victory lap?’
“I was, like, `I’m going to stick by that and use that,’ because it really changed my perspective coming into this.”
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That new attitude manifested itself Friday after Gauff lost the opening set to No.27-seeded Elina Svitolina. The 20-year-old rallied to win 3-6, 6-3, 6-3 in Arthur Ashe Stadium.
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It was Gauff’s 10th consecutive win in New York. Gauff, who dropped only five games in her first two matches, was severely challenged by the resourceful Svitolina.
The American saved five of seven break points, which helped compensate for 21 winners and 35 unforced errors.
Next up: No.13 Emma Navarro, who Friday handled No.19 Marta Kostyuk in three sets, in a fourth-round match on Sunday.
While Gauff and Navarro moved on to the second week, Peyton Stearns was not as fortunate. The unseeded American fell to No.24 Donna Vekic 7-5, 6-4.
Against Gauff, Svitolina was looking to reach the fourth round at each of the season’s four Grand Slams for the first time in her career.
Early on, Svitolina pressured Gauff’s serve but failed to convert her first three break points. In the seventh game, Gauff forged three break points of her own. Not only did Svitolina fight them all off, she won the last three points of the game, the last on a lob that sailed long.
In a stirring sequence, Svitolina broke Gauff at love in the next game and served out the set with a flourish -- winning the last 11 straight points.
“I mean, I feel like I lost, like, eight points in a row at the end of the first set,” Gauff said later. “Probably more. So I knew I needed a reset at that point. I just went and used the bathroom, changed the bottom half of my clothes, and splashed some water on my face, and felt like a new person coming out.
“I just didn't want to leave the court with any regrets.”
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Gauff broke Svitolina in the sixth game of the second set and coasted into the third set with the clear edge in momentum.
Gauff broke Svitolina in the opening game and again in the fifth to take control of the match. The highlight of the match was a fierce 37-stroke rally that Gauff won when Svitolina’s backhand went wide.
Gauff broke Svitolina for the fourth time in the match, converting her fourth match point.
Since the first round of 2023 US Open, Gauff has now won 23 Grand Slam matches and scored her fifth consecutive fourth-round win. And so, for only the third time in the past three decades, three players (Sabalenka at the Australian Open, Swiatek at Roland Garros and Gauff at the US Open) can defend their women’s singles Grand Slam titles after 2010 and 1996.
Gauff’s post-Wimbledon results were disappointing -- she split six matches in Paris, Toronto and Cincinnati. Two weeks before the US Open, Gauff was in Cincinnati, looking to defend her title there. She was devastated when she lost her first match there to Yulia Putintseva.
Looking back, Gauff calls that defeat a blessing in disguise.
“I lost so early, because of that I was able to actually train, which I hadn't been able to,” she said before the tournament. “I do my best results when I come off a training block. I was able to train for a good week and a half.”
Winning the US Open at the age of 19 wasn’t as life-changing for Gauff as it might have been for some others -- because she was already a phenomenon at the age of 15. After winning here a year ago, Gauff knows it’s a brand-new tournament.
“At the end of the day, to defend would be great,” she told reporters. “But I feel like it’s an unnecessary amount of pressure to put that on yourself. When you step on the court, you just have that feeling. It’s like, 'OK, I know I can perform really well here. I’ve done it before in the past, and I'll do it again.’
“That’s been my motto. I know I have the chance to do it again, whether it happens 2024 or years in the future, I think I have the belief that I will do it again.”
