![\"tennis](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Pro-Player-Gear-610X150-03.jpg\")
<\/a>tennis express pro player gear<\/p>\nThe 22-year-old American, last year\u2019s Roland-Garros champion, improves to 19-3 on clay since the start of 2025. Her only losses in that span came to Jasmine Paolini (Stuttgart quarterfinals and Rome final in 2025) and Aryna Sabalenka (Madrid final in 2025).<\/p>\n
On Thursday, Gauff had to rally from 3-0 down in the opening set after being broken in her first two service games and failing to convert early break opportunities. She quickly turned the momentum with back-to-back breaks to level at 3-all, but had to fight back from a break down once more\u2014winning the final three games of the set to take control.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started off a little bit rough, had some break point opportunities in the first game, but happy to get through today,\u201d Gauff said. \u201cI\u2019ve never really had easy first-round matches here in Stuttgart, so I guess the trend continued a little bit today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gauff, into her third consecutive quarterfinal in Stuttgart, won 13 of the final 16 games. She raced out to a 5-0 lead in the second set before closing out the match in one hour and 36 minutes.<\/p>\n
The No. 3 seed improves to 17-6 on the season and will face Karolina Muchova\u2014whom she has defeated in all six previous meetings\u2014in Friday\u2019s quarterfinals.<\/p>\n
Muchova advanced with a 1-6, 6-3, 6-0 victory over Elise Mertens.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m still getting used to the clay,\u201d Gauff said. \u201cThere are some decisions I could have made differently, but the clay here is different from Madrid and Rome\u2014it\u2019s very slippery, and it\u2019s hard to change direction on this surface.\u201d<\/p>\n
Walmart Version of The King<\/p>\n
During her post-match chat with Heinz Gunthardt, Gauff was asked who she modelled her game after on the clay. After hemming and hawing a bit, she said she tries to hit her forehand like Rafa a bit, then clarified.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike a Walmart version of Rafa. I don\u2019t want to be obliterated online. Like, a lesser version of Rafa, okay?\u201d<\/p>\n
Rybakina Rolls<\/p>\n
Elena Rybakina, the 2026 Australian Open champion, also made a strong start to her clay campaign, defeating Diana Shnaider, 6-3, 6-4, to reach the quarterfinals.<\/p>\n
The top seed and 2024 Stuttgart champion is now third on the WTA Tour in wins this season with 22. She will face either Zeynep Sonmez or Leylah Fernandez next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Coco Gauff got her 2026 clay-court season up and running with an impressive victory over Liudmila Samsonova to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399467,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":{"0":"post-608827","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=608827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}