Gauff ‘mentally exhausted’ after US Open first-round win

US Open 2025

Dates: August 24 through September 7 in Flushing Meadows, New York

Ajla Tomljanovic from Australia defeated home favorite Coco Gauff in a first-round contest of the US Open.

Although Gauff struggled to win the match on Tuesday night at Flushing Meadows, 6-4, 6-7 (2-7) 7-5, despite being far from convincing.

Given the problems with her opening shot, the 21-year-old American’s serve was particularly under scrutiny.

2023 champion Gauff reorganized her team just days before her grand prix win, removing Matt Daly as coach and appointing Gavin MacMillan, a biomechanics expert who helped Aryna Sabalenka beat her serving yips.

“I had a chance to win it in straight sets,” he said. Although it wasn’t the best, Gauff expressed his happiness.

After striking 16 double errors against Italy’s Jasmine Paolini in Cincinnati, Gauff made what she called a “sudden decision.”

In a protracted fight with 79th-ranked Tomjlanovic, the reigning French Open champion’s serve was once more under pressure.

Although Chris Evert, an 18-time major winner, thought Gauff’s service motion was typically more balanced and in “unison” than it had previously, she still had six broken wrists and ten double faults.

In the crucial third set, she attempted to serve out the match at 5-4, but the frailty persisted.

Before Gauff served out at the second time with a safer strategy of going deeper down the middle, Tomjlanovic broke back after taking advice from MacMillan.

She was relieved to have crossed the line, evident by the passionate celebration after winning and the roaring to the heavens.

Iga Swiatek, the second-ranked player, defeated Colombia’s Emiliana Arango to start her quest for a second US Open title.

The Pole, who won her first Wimbledon title last month and is now the favorite to complete her 2022 triumph, cruised to a 6-1, 6-2 victory at Arthur Ashe Stadium.

Swiatek won 76% of her points on serve without going through break points, beating 26 winners to win five against the world’s 84-winner Arango.

It was a solid match, she said, “but first matches are difficult to get used to the rhythm.

The six-time Grand Slam champion prepared for the final major of the year by winning the WTA 1000 event at Cincinnati Open and looking strong in New York.

She and Casper Ruud made it to the final of the newly revamped mixed doubles competition the day after she appeared in the newly revamped US Open, defeating Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori, who were defending champions and doubles pros.

Swiatek took early control of her match against Arango with a break in serve before regaining control for a 5-1 lead before holding on to win the opening set.

In just over an hour, Swiatek continued her ruthless form into the second set, breaking her opponent’s serve twice in the seventh game and sealing a dominant victory.

American Anisimova made 17 unforced errors in the opening set but improved significantly in the second, her first Grand Slam contest since being defeated by Swiatek in the Wimbledon final, 6-0 6-0.

To prepare for a second-round meeting with another Australian, teenager Maya Joint, who won the final five games of the contest, she won.

However, her countryman Danielle Collins, who had already lost two games to Jacqueline Cristian of Romania, made an early exit for the second consecutive year.

World No. 50 Cristian defeated Australian Open semi-finalist Collins, who was hampered by a back injury, 6-2, 6-0.

In a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Belgium’s Greet Minnen, two-time champion Naomi Osaka, who is now 23rd, cruised past her.