Fresh off her first Olympic experience, reigning U.S. Open champion and No. 1 seed Coco Gauff kicked off her North American hardcourt swing on Thursday afternoon with a 6-4, 6-4 win over China’s Wang Yafan at the National Bank Open presented by Rogers.
Despite winning in straight sets, Gauff struggled to find her rhythm at times against the 72nd-ranked Wang, who had won two qualifying matches over the weekend and then upset former Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin in the first round of the main draw.
Gauff, who had only three days to switch from clay to hard court after playing in Paris last week, seemed to be finding her footing as the match progressed. She saved three break points in her second service game — with Wang missing an easy smash on one of those crucial points — before breaking in the following game. While Wang did a good job of mixing up the speed and height of her shots to break back and draw errors from her opponent’s vulnerable forehand, Gauff never really looked in trouble on the biggest points, driving a forehand winner into the corner to take the first set after 44 minutes.
The second set proved to be a similar affair, with Gauff jumping ahead an early break and, despite a few blips in the road, still able to maintain her composure to close out the match.
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“I think overall I was playing the right way. I just made some errors, which was expected today,” Gauff said in her post-match press conference. “Overall I'm happy with how I played. It's not easy transitioning from all these different surfaces in such a short amount of time, but I am happy to get pushed through.”
Gauff only took two days off after the Olympics. By the time she arrived in Toronto for her first hit behind closed doors on Sunday evening, she found herself having to make a number of adjustments to her movement. After spending so much time on clay, she said, she has gradually gotten used to the lower bounces and quicker pace of the ball.
“I think overall it's just the movement that I'm still getting used to, and that can only just come with more reps, but I am confident that I will find it,” she said.
At just 20 years old, with her powerful game and preeminent problem-solving skills, Gauff has now become one of the toughest players to beat in women’s tennis. Five years after her breakout run at Wimbledon, where she beat Venus Williams and reached the quarter-finals as a qualifier, the American has gone from the hunter to the hunted, consistently being expected to win against lower-ranked players — many of whom have nothing to lose and tend to play their best tennis against the top players.
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Gauff has welcomed that challenge, but she acknowledges that she is still developing as a competitor. “If everybody's playing me at their high level it can only make me better,” she said. “The thing is that, when you have success young, I think people, especially fans of the sport, tend to forget you're still developing, and [there’s] no sport — maybe except gymnastics — [where] you're really reaching your peak at 20 years old. This last Olympics showed us that that's also not true, with all the ages of some of the gold medalists, and obviously Simone Biles.”
She added: “It's great that not just me, but other girls are doing well so fast, but I think we also have to give grace on us because we're still becoming a better player. A lot of times when, in the past, when you look at reasons why some younger girls maybe don't do as well as they get older, it's more mental, if anything, not because they physically can't handle it. I think overall I'm just trying to put that in perspective, and honestly the Olympics was a great learning experience for me, and it really showed me that perspective a lot.”
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The World No. 2, who has lost in the quarter-finals in all three of her previous appearances at this event, will now face No. 14 seed Diana Shnaider, who won her second final-set tiebreak in as many matches to advance to the round of 16. This will be their first meeting.
Shnaider has emerged as one of the breakout stars of the 2024 season. Now sitting just shy of her career-high ranking of No. 23, the 20-year-old lefty has won three WTA 250 titles, one WTA 125 title, and the Olympic silver medal in doubles with Mirra Andreeva.
The WTA's best return to Toronto this summer for the National Bank Open August 4 to 12, 2024 at Sobeys Stadium. 2024 Tickets are on sale. Get your tickets today!
Feature Photo: Peter Power
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