Coco Gauff returned to the scene of her grand slam breakthrough on a rain-lashed Tuesday night and safely cleared the first hurdle toward another, launching her pursuit of a second US Open title in four years with a 6-3, 6-4 win over Turkey’s Zeynep Sonmez beneath the closed roof of Arthur Ashe Stadium.
The 22-year-old American, seeded fourth in New York, arrived with momentum and expectation running unusually high, fresh off her first title of the year in Cincinnati and having shown encouraging signs that the serve which has so often dictated the rest of her game is becoming a more reliable weapon. Now, three years after she first lifted the trophy here, both a third major championship and the world No 1 ranking are within her reach.
Gauff got off to a confident start before a buzzing crowd, crunching a pair of early aces in a love hold, but the 54th-ranked Sonmez held her own in the muscular baseline exchanges throughout the opening five games. Gauff took control in the sixth, breaking her opponent’s serve without dropping a point, then steadied herself through an uneven service game to move to the brink of the set at 5-2. Sonmez held to prolong it, but Gauff calmly served it out after 33 minutes as the heavy rainfall pounding the roof overhead reverberated through Ashe like the inside of a bass drum.
The second set was less routine. Gauff broke immediately and appeared poised to pull away, but the 24-year-old Sonmez responded by attacking the net and taking advantage of a sudden dip in the American’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 finally escaping with a 115mph ace down the middle to complete the 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 short order to surrender the critical break, before Gauff consolidated for 5-3 and shortly after held at love to close the show after 1hr 20min.
Gauff is considered by many the finest defensive player on the women’s tour but the serve has long been the bellwether of her overall game. When it deserts her, the problems have a way of trickling down to her groundstrokes. When she’s landing 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 and with her serve under intense scrutiny before coming undone against Naomi Osaka in the fourth round.
This time she returned with tangible evidence 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’s been playing the cleanest tennis of her career.
Gauff described the transformation after Tuesday’s win 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.”
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 still 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 such fraught affairs at her lowest points.
The result sends Gauff into the round of 64 against either Daria Kasatkina or Paula Badosa, whose first-round match was suspended with Badosa leading 6-1, 5-4 after rain halted play on the outer courts. But the stakes surrounding Gauff’s fortnight extend considerably further. She is one of four women who can leave Flushing Meadows at the top of the WTA rankings, alongside current No 1 Aryna Sabalenka, Elena Rybakina and Jessica Pegula. The equation for Gauff to take over the top spot is straightforward: she must win the US Open and Rybakina must fall before the semi-finals.
All of which adds another layer of expectation at the tournament where Gauff admits she feels it most. For all her familiarity with America’s national championship, she has spoken this week about trying to experience the US Open differently: less consumed by the result and more conscious of enjoying an occasion that once left her feeling relief, rather than pride, even after victories.
Perhaps Tuesday offered an early sign the new approach is working. Gauff admitted she was nervous in the tunnel before walking on to Ashe, only for the feeling to vanish completely 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.”