Mumbai: Coco Gauff walked back to the baseline, shoulders drooped, face wrinkled in agony. “Nothing’s working,” she mouthed to her player’s box. At the other end of the court, Naomi Osaka took a few shadow swings, a bright smile on her face.
The stark contrast in their body language told the story of their fourth round US Open match.
The first time they met was at the 2019 US Open. Osaka was the defending champion and Gauff a 15-year-old destined for big things. Osaka won, but in a ground-breaking gesture, she asked her young opponent to stay behind and address the crowd rather than walk off alone through the tunnel.
On Monday night, as Osaka handed Gauff a 6-3, 6-2 defeat, there was no stopping the 21-year-old American, who packed her bags and made a quick exit, breaking into tears as she stepped into the tunnel.
The win took Osaka to the quarter-final of a Grand Slam for the first time since she won the 2021 Australian Open.
“I was super locked in. I just had so much fun out here,” Osaka, 27, said after the match. “I just really wanted an opportunity to come out here and play (it was the first time she was playing at the Arthur Ashe Stadium this year). This is my favourite court in the world, and it means so much to me to be back here.”
This was a match pegged between two heavyweights of world tennis. But they are in different junctures of their careers.
Gauff is a two-time Grand Slam champion at 20 and world No.3. Of late though she has hit a rough patch and is working to fix her serve. Osaka is a former world No.1 and four-time Major winner. She missed the entire 2023 season while on maternity leave and has only recently started to claw her way back onto the biggest stages.
Eventually, it all came down to trust. Osaka backed herself to hit the big shots and make the right moves. Gauff ended up second guessing her every move.
In the 64-minute match, Gauff committed 33 unforced errors against eight winners, served five double faults and won only six points on Osaka’s serve. There were chinks in Gauff’s armour even ahead of the match.
Her serve has been a problem, and just a few weeks before the year’s final major – she won the US Open in 2023 – Gauff hired biomechanics specialist Gavin MacMillan to help rebuild the shot. But what the American has lacked on the serve, she made up in her solid groundstrokes.
Even those strokes – particularly the reliable forehand – betrayed her on Monday as she hit 20 unforced errors from that wing.
“Off the ground I think I just made way too many mistakes,” Gauff said in her post-match press conference. “Way too many errors, which I feel like that’s the part of my game that I felt the most confident coming into the tournament.”
Osaka, who has also made a personnel change in her team, has played herself into impressive form.
Since returning to the tour in 2024, the Japanese star has had her share of frustrations. Shortly after Wimbledon though, she hired Iga Swiatek’s former coach Tomasz Wiktorowski.
Their first tournament together saw Osaka reach the final of the Canadian Masters, which earned her a seeding at a Grand Slam for the first time since the 2022 Australian Open.
Earlier in the tournament, Osaka talked about how Wiktorowski has helped her become more efficient in her return game. But against Gauff, Osaka played her typical heavy-hitting style, with an extra element of patience.
“Physically, I know that I’m capable of rallying a lot, so I don’t overplay,” Osaka said after the match in which she won 16 of 24 rallies that lasted five shots or more. “I kind of am okay with just waiting. Granted, I’m not a defensive player, so it’s not like I’m trying to move side-to-side, but it’s more like the silent confidence and understanding that I don’t need to hit a winner at all times.”
The impatience with the lack of results seems to have been replaced by the simple joy of being back on court and playing exciting tennis.
She mentioned earlier that she’s not looking too far ahead. But with the way she has been performing, as former world No.6 Chanda Rubin put it during commentary, “she’s playing well enough to win the US Open.”
In her career prior to this US Open, Osaka had reached only four Grand Slam quarter-finals. She went on to win the title on each occasion.
Now in her fifth quarter-final, Karolina Muchova is the next hurdle as Osaka looks to continue that streak.
