By HOWARD FENDRICH AP Tennis Writer
NEW YORK — Coco Gauff’s first match since enlisting someone to help with her shaky serving got off to a rocky start at the U.S. Open on Tuesday night. She double-faulted in the very first game – and a total of 10 times. She got broken in that game, too – and a total of six times.
The only numbers that truly counted in the end, of course, were the ones on the Arthur Ashe Stadium scoreboard, and those showed that the third-seeded Gauff held on for a 6-4, 6-7 (2), 7-5 victory over Ajla Tomljanovic to reach the second round at Flushing Meadows.
“It wasn’t the best,” Gauff said, “but I’m happy to get through.”
Nothing came easily. Gauff twice led by a break in the second set but couldn’t end things. She went up 5-3 in the third and served for the victory at 5-4, but double-faulted twice in a row and missed a pair of forehands to make it 5-all.
That could have been too much to take. Instead, Gauff steadied herself, broke right back, then was able to serve it out on her second chance to do so, nearly three full hours after the contest began.
“I had so many chances. … I was just like, ‘Eventually, one of these is going to go my way,’” she said.
Gauff, who won the first of her two Grand Slam titles at the 2023 U.S. Open as a teenager, added Gavin MacMillan to her coaching team shortly before the start of this tournament. MacMillan is a biomechanics expert who helped current world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka retool her serve a few years ago, and he was in the first row of Gauff’s guest box, seated right in front of her mother.
After beating Tomljanovic, Gauff called her practices with MacMillan “really tough” and “mentally exhausting.”
“I’m trying to improve with each match,” she said.
The problem for Gauff, in a nutshell, has been a propensity to accumulate double-faults. Her 320 entering the U.S. Open were the most on the women’s tour this season – and more than 100 more than anyone else. That included 23 in one match earlier this month, then 14 the next time out.
On Tuesday, as she dealt with the work-in-progress of a tweaked service motion, Gauff began with much slower offerings than she’s capable of striking. As the match progressed, and the tension rose, the 21-year-old from Florida reverted to her customary pace, going from averaging just 88 mph on first serves in the first set, to 97 mph in the second and 101 in the third, when Ashe’s retractable roof was closed. She cranked one in at 117 mph and even produced one second-serve ace.
What won this one against the 79th-ranked Tomljanovic, an Australian best known for defeating Serena Williams at the 2022 U.S. Open in the 23-time major champion’s final match of her career, was Gauff’s exemplary court coverage and terrific backhand. Appropriately, a down-the-line backhand converted match point, and Gauff waved her arms overhead to rile up the crowd.
Even as Tomljanovic swung away on her big forehand, it was Gauff who got the best of their lengthy exchanges from the baseline.
She also fared well when she pressed forward, winning 12 of the 15 points she ended at the net, including one with a leaping, over-the-shoulder, back-to-the-net volley winner in the third set
This was Gauff’s first match at a Slam since stumbling to a first-round exit at Wimbledon in July, a setback that followed her championship at the French Open in June.
As Gauff moves forward at Flushing Meadows, there is a chance she can overtake Sabalenka and No. 2 Iga Swiatek in the rankings and rise to No. 1 for the first time.
SWIATEK, SINNER START STRONG
Iga Swiatek is trying to do something no woman has done since Serena Williams in 2012: win the U.S. Open and Wimbledon in the same season.
Jannik Sinner is trying to do something no man has done since Roger Federer in 2008: repeat as U.S. Open champion.
By the looks of things on Tuesday in Arthur Ashe Stadium as the now-three-day first round wrapped up, the two players who triumphed at the All England Club last month – and who both served short doping-related bans last year – look ready to contend again in New York. And how.
The second-seeded Swiatek was up first in the U.S. Open’s main arena and needed merely an hour to dismiss Emiliana Arango of Colombia, 6-1, 6-2. No. 1 Sinner then took only 39 minutes more to finish off his, 6-1, 6-1, 6-2 victory over Vit Kopriva of the Czech Republic.
“Obviously, every year is different,” said Sinner, sporting the white arm sleeve he began wearing after hurting his elbow in a fall during Wimbledon. “You come here starting this tournament, hopefully, the best possible way – which I did.”
He certainly showed no signs of the virus that forced him to quit in the first set of the Cincinnati Open final against his biggest rival, No. 2 Carlos Alcaraz, last week.
Either Sinner or Alcaraz, who have combined to win the past seven major titles, can own the top ATP ranking after these 15 days. Similarly, Swiatek, Coco Gauff or top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka, the defending champion, can leave New York atop the WTA.
On Tuesday, Sinner saved both break points he faced and won 33 of 40 first-serve points.
Swiatek was even more dominant, not only never facing a break point but never even being taken to deuce in any of her eight service games, while accumulating a 26-5 edge in winners.
There was a time when some folks, perhaps swayed by Swiatek’s dominance on the French Open’s red clay, thought she couldn’t succeed on the speedier surfaces of hard and grass courts. That certainly was not the case, as her championships at Wimbledon in July and at the U.S. Open in 2022 make obvious.
Ten women have split the past 11 trophies in New York; only Naomi Osaka, in 2018 and 2020, won more than one in that span. And Williams, with three in a row from 2012 to 2014, was the last woman to leave as the champion in consecutive years.
As for the men, no one has collected two in a row at the U.S. Open since Federer’s five straight titles from 2004 to 2008, before he lost in the 2009 final to Juan Martin del Potro.
Sinner was asked why that might be.
“We are heading towards end of the season, so some players, they are tired. Some players, they are feeling different. Many things can change. It’s also the last big trophy of the year. … I always say that the future is unpredictable,” he said. “So I don’t know what’s going to happen this time.”
ROSY START FOR OSAKA
Everything came up roses for Naomi Osaka in her first-round match.
The two-time champion entered the court with sparkly red roses in her ponytail above her red outfit and even a matching Labubu that she named Billie Jean Bling.
Osaka’s tennis looked good, too. The No. 23 seed from Japan beat Greet Minnen, 6-3, 6-4. Osaka fell down a break in the second set (trailing 4-3) but won 12 of the final 14 points to seal the victory. She converted on all six break point opportunities for the match.
Osaka said the work on her crystalized Nike bubble hem skirt started long ago and the plan for the hair accessory – which she removed before the match – came together more recently.
“It was really elaborate, because the crystals are really hard to do on a performance outfit,” Osaka said. “I just thought it would be really fun to do a New York under the lights. I’m glad that my first match was a night match, because this outfit was really fun to play. This is my night outfit, so hopefully I’ll wear my day outfit next time.”
She asked her stylist within the last couple weeks about the idea for the ponytail with roses in it.
“I was like, ‘Do you think this is possible?’ Maybe it was two weeks ago,” Osaka said. “Yeah, we kind of just toss ideas around. Obviously the outcome is way better than I could have imagined.”
Just not quite right to play tennis in.
“I did always know I was going to take the hair off, because it is really heavy,” Osaka said. “There were a couple of times that I played in braids, and even that was kind of borderline. So yeah, I just did it for the presentation.”
WHAT ELSE HAPPENED TUESDAY?
Eighth-seeded American Amanda Anisimova, the runner-up to Swiatek at Wimbledon, defeated Kimberly Birrell, 6-3, 6-2. It was her career-best 11th win at a major this season.
No. 13 Ekaterina Alexandrova, No. 18 Beatriz Haddad Maia and No. 27 Marta Kostyuk were among the other women’s seeded winners, while No. 3 Alexander Zverev, No. 10 Lorenzo Musetti, No. 19 Francisco Cerundolo, No. 23 Alexander Bublik – who eliminated 2014 champion Marin Cilic – and No. 27 Denis Shapovalov were among the seeded men to advance. Zverev was a 6-2, 7-6 (4), 6-4 winner against Alejandro Tabilo in a match that ended a little before 1 a.m. ET.
WHO PLAYS WEDNESDAY?
Sabalenka, Alcaraz, 24-time major champion Novak Djokovic and 2024 U.S. Open runner-up Jessica Pegula are on the Day 4 schedule as the second round begins.
VENUS TO PLAY DOUBLES WITH FERNANDEZ
Venus Williams will compete in women’s doubles at the U.S. Open after receiving a wild-card entry with 2021 singles runner-up Leylah Fernandez on Tuesday.
The 45-year-old Williams is appearing at her first Grand Slam tournament in two years after making a comeback to pro tennis in July following 16 months away from the tour.
She competed in mixed doubles last week, then in singles on Monday night – both also via wild-card invitations from the U.S. Tennis Association.
Williams exited in the first round each time, but was thrilled to be back out on court after dealing with injuries and illness. She had surgery for uterine fibroids last year, and spoke Monday following her three-set exit in singles against 11th-seeded Karolina Muchova about being relieved to be pain-free.
“Oh, what did I prove to myself?” Williams said, repeating part of a reporter’s question at her post-match news conference. “I think for me, getting back on the court was about giving myself a chance to play more healthy. When you play unhealthy, it’s in your mind. It’s not just how you feel. You get stuck in your mind, too. So it was nice to be freer.”
She was the oldest person to play singles at the U.S. Open since 1981, and the spectators loved every moment of it, greeting her with camera phones held aloft, shouting “Let’s go, Venus!” during the match and ushering her off the Arthur Ashe Stadium court with a standing ovation.
In addition to her seven Grand Slam singles trophies, Williams owns 14 major titles in women’s doubles, all with her younger sister, Serena, as her partner. Two of those came in New York, in 1999 and 2009.
They last played together at the U.S. Open in 2022, the year Serena played her final singles match there.
Williams and Fernandez, a 22-year-old from Canada, will face the sixth-seeded pair of Lyudmyla Kichenok of Ukraine and Ellen Perez of Australia in the first round.
Fernandez lost to Emma Raducanu in the U.S. Open singles final four years ago.
Williams hadn’t played an official match anywhere since the Miami Open in March 2024 until she surprisingly accepted a wild card to the hard-court tournament in Washington last month. She entered the singles and doubles events there, winning one match in each bracket.
This U.S. Open is her first major tournament since she played at Flushing Meadows in 2023.
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