Coco Gauff launched her pursuit of a second US Open title in four years with a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Turkey's Zeynep Sonmez in the first round on Tuesday night. The 22-year-old American, seeded fourth in New York, played under the closed roof of Arthur Ashe Stadium as heavy rain pounded the venue.
Gauff's Serve Shows Promise
Gauff arrived in New York with momentum after winning her first title of the year in Cincinnati. She has also shown encouraging signs that her serve, which has often dictated the rest of her game, is becoming a more reliable weapon. Now, three years after her first grand slam breakthrough here, both a third major championship and the world No 1 ranking are within her reach.
In the opening set, Gauff got off to a confident start before a buzzing crowd, crunching a pair of early aces in a love hold. The 54th-ranked Sonmez held her own in muscular baseline exchanges throughout the first five games. Gauff took control in the sixth game, breaking her opponent's serve without dropping a point, then steadied herself through an uneven service game to move to 5-2. Sonmez held to prolong the set, but Gauff calmly served it out after 33 minutes.
Second Set Test
The second set was less straightforward. Gauff broke immediately and appeared poised to pull away, but Sonmez responded by attacking the net and taking advantage of a dip in Gauff's level, breaking back for 2-all with a searing backhand winner. Gauff then had to dig out of a marathon 16-point service game at 2-3, saving three break points before escaping with a 115mph ace down the middle to hold for 3-all.
“I knew if I could hold that game, I felt confident breaking the next game,” Gauff said. That proved prescient. Sonmez double-faulted twice in the next game to surrender the critical break, before Gauff consolidated for 5-3 and shortly after held at love to close the show after 1hr 20min.
Serve Improvement Key
Gauff is considered by many the finest defensive player on the women's tour, but the serve has long been the bellwether of her game. When it deserts her, problems trickle down to her groundstrokes. When she lands a high percentage of first serves, everything else tends to fall into place. That has made the past 12 months particularly significant. Gauff arrived at last year's US Open at the onset of a major technical overhaul, with her serve under intense scrutiny, before coming undone against Naomi Osaka in the fourth round.
This time she returned with tangible evidence that the work was paying off, having served far more effectively in reaching the semi-finals for the first time at Wimbledon and in Canada, followed by her Cincinnati triumph. Over the past few months, she has been playing the cleanest tennis of her career.
Gauff described the transformation as a gradual one, built around a more consistent ball toss and subtle changes to her wrist position. “I don’t even realize how much it looks different until someone posted a video of me serving even in Miami Open this year,” she said. “My serve looks different now.”
Statistics and Next Steps
Tuesday offered another promising data point. Gauff landed 62% of her first serves topping out at 125mph, struck five aces against only three double faults, and won 71% of her first-serve points. More telling was what happened when she missed the first delivery: she won nearly two-thirds of the points behind her second serve, helping her lose serve only once all night. That stability freed Gauff to play the first-strike tennis that was so often inaccessible to her a year ago.
There has been a corresponding shift in her mentality. “It does take a lot to break me,” Gauff said, a striking declaration from a player whose service games could become fraught affairs at her lowest points.
The victory sends Gauff into the second round against either Daria Kasatkina or Paula Badosa, whose match was suspended with Badosa leading 6-1, 5-4 after rain halted play on the outer courts. The stakes surrounding Gauff's fortnight extend further. She is one of four women who can leave Flushing Meadows at the top of the WTA rankings, alongside Aryna Sabalenka, Elena Rybakina and Jessica Pegula. For Gauff, the equation is straightforward: she must win the US Open and Rybakina must fall before the semi-finals.
Gauff has spoken this week about trying to experience the US Open differently, less consumed by the result and more conscious of enjoying the occasion. She admitted she was nervous in the tunnel before walking on to Ashe, but the feeling vanished during the warm-up. “I don’t know, it was just a weird feeling today that I felt pretty calm,” she said. “I don’t know what put my mind at ease. I think just maybe the confidence I had this week and knowing, like, the opponent would have to play a really high level and me a really low level maybe for it to not go my way.”
