US Open: Gauff overcomes scare, wins ugly to book all-teen clash against Andreeva

Coco Gauff edged out Laura Siegemund 3-6, 6-2, 6-4 on Monday night. She’ll face Russian Mirra Andreeva in the next round

Coco Gauff US Open 2023 Image Credit: Chryslene Caillaud _ Panoramic

Tennis Majors

August 29, 2023

US Open •First round • completed

See draw

L. SiegemundvsC. Gauff

American Coco Gauff, the No 6 seed, overcame German qualifier Laura Siegemund 3-6, 6-2, 6-4 to move into the second round of the US Open at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York on Monday night.

It was a shaky start by Gauff, who enters a Grand Slam as one of the top five favourites for the first time in her career, having won the biggest title of her career a week ago in Cincinnati. The world No 6 dropped the opening set 6-3, before a titanic game at the start of the second set saw Gauff wrest back control of the match.

From there, it was plain sailing for the American, who won 75 percent of her first serve points and struck a level 34 winners and unforced errors. The match wasn’t without drama, however, as Gauff took exception to Siegemund’s time between points, getting into an altercation with the chair umpire at one stage.

Today was truly winning ugly.
Coco Gauff

The 19-year-old American admitted after her win that she managed to win by following coach Brad Golbert’s strategy of winning ugly. “I definitely won ugly tonight. It was a lot of weird points, with the slicing. Usually something that I usually do well against, opponents who slice. We were prepared for it. I think today was just execution,” Gauff said. “I just came from playing Muchova last week who has an amazing slice, but obviously she’s a more aggressive player than Laura. I think I was trying my best to just stay in the points, try to push her on defense. She was coming to the net a lot. I lost to her in doubles at Wimbledon, so I knew she had good hands. She proved that she did. I think she only missed two or three volleys. Today was truly winning ugly.”

Gauff will play Russian Mirra Andreeva next, in what will be an all-teen clash with the 16-year-old overcoming a qualifier of her own earlier in the evening. But the American says she is not thinking too much about her opponent’s age before their meeting.

“Honestly the age is not anything I think about. I never thought about it before when I was on the younger end and I never thought about it in the past when I was on the older end. It means nothing. She has her ranking and that’s all that matters. I think she’s 16 or 17. 16, I don’t know. She had a ranking then, that means she deserves to be here,” Gauff said of Andreeva. “I think the media, in general, put too much on age. It doesn’t matter if I’m playing someone younger. Yeah, didn’t matter when I was younger, I was still beating some people older than me. She has an equal opportunity to do that on Wednesday. I’m going to approach the match as I would any other match and try to do better for what I did at French Open. I was able to get through that one. I was tight in some moments. I think I’m going to try to improve upon that.”

New York (Grand Slam), other first-round results (USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, hard, USD 44.700.000, most recent results first):