The path to greatness is never a straight line, but Coco Gauff remains on an upward trajectory.
Gauff took the first step toward defending her U.S. Open title on Monday, defeating France’s Varvara Graczewa 6-2, 6-0 in the first round.
Third-seeded Gauff, whose recent struggles had dropped her to the second match of the afternoon at Arthur Ashe Stadium, overcame some self-inflicted errors early on, firing 10 aces and powering through the rest of the match.
But watching Gauff leave the court where she won her first Grand Slam title last year, it was clear how much the 20-year-old will have to improve when she takes on Germany’s Tatjana Maria in the second round.
After a rough few weeks, Gauff credited her strength on Monday to a new perspective.
“If you defend something, you win something. And if you do it, you can do it again,” she said in an on-court interview. “Whether I do it again this year or not, I intend to do it again.”
The final score did not reflect the pressure Graczeva put on Gauff early on.
The 24-year-old Frenchwoman forced six break points in Gauff’s first three service games, but the reigning champion survived them all and took the first set with a break of Gracheva.
Gauff double-faulted five times in the first set but only once in the second as she tightened up her game significantly.
Gauff broke Gracheva’s first service game of the second set, then won the final nine games to win in 66 minutes.
Gauff, who has not won a tournament since the Auckland Open in January, used her skill and strong service game to secure the victory.
Her 10 aces came at the perfect time, especially when Graczeva converted two break points in the final game, after Gauff saved with an ace each time while Graczeva failed to hit a single ace throughout the match.
Gauff’s first-round performance left plenty of room for improvement, but it was still a promising start given her recent performances.
Gauff has had a tough summer this year, losing in the fourth round at Wimbledon in July to 19th-seeded American Emma Navarro.
She then lost in the third round to Croatia’s Donna Vekic at the Paris Olympics, a loss she mourned by wearing an Olympic rings charm necklace during her match on Monday.
U.S. doubles specialist Desiree Krafcik presented each member of the Olympic team with a necklace or a ring, said Gauff, who served as the U.S. flag bearer along with LeBron James.
“So I thought, ‘Maybe I can show it off,'” she said with a smile.
Gauff’s bad luck continued after international tournaments, when she lost in straight sets to Diana Schnyder in Toronto and then lost a third-set lead to Russia’s Yulia Putintseva in the first round in Cincinnati earlier this month.
But Gauff said it was the best she could have started the U.S. Open and she hopes to get better as the tournament progresses, noting that she had to win the opening three sets at last year’s tournament and that she plans to keep her cool.
“The last few weeks have been tough. I’ve been like, ‘I have to do this, I have to do that,'” Gauff said. “But I don’t have to prove anything to anyone but myself. So [these] I think the next two weeks will be all about living up to the expectations I have placed on myself, just learning and realizing that I still have a lot to do in this game.
“I don’t know if I’ll win this year or if I’ll come back here in years to come, but you can’t win every year. [having] Just have that perspective and the belief that you can do it, but don’t have the expectation that you should.”
