MIAMI — When Coco Gauff last took the court, her week ended abruptly, forced to retire against Alexandra Eala in the third round of Indian Wells with an arm issue that left her status for the Miami Open uncertain.<\/p>\n
For a moment, she considered not playing at all.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery day it’s different, but I think for the most part I will be fine playing this tournament,\u201d Gauff said ahead of the event. \u201cI might feel it sometimes on court, but I definitely feel it less and less every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Playing at home ultimately tipped the balance. And on Saturday, that decision paid off.<\/p>\n
After dropping the opening set and struggling to find rhythm against Elisabetta Cocciaretto\u2019s early timing, Gauff regrouped and worked her way through a 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 Round of 64 comeback win at Hard Rock Stadium.<\/p>\n
The match was delayed for several hours as more rain rolled through — the second disruption in three days — before play resumed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Gauff\u2019s win came despite a few uneven patches on serve, including 11 double faults, but she was steadier in key moments. She won 63 percent of her service points, and while the margins elsewhere were slim — 21 winners to Cocciaretto\u2019s 23 and 39 unforced errors to 36 — Gauff managed the bigger points more effectively as the match wore on.<\/p>\n
Key moments in the match<\/p>\n
Cocciaretto breaks twice to take control of the opening set
\nGauff falls behind early in the second, then resets at 4-4 with a key break
\nGauff closes the second as Cocciaretto misfires off the backhand side
\nCocciaretto breaks to open the third, but Gauff responds immediately
\nGauff holds at love for 2-2, then breaks again for a 3-2 edge
\nA multi-deuce hold pushes Gauff ahead 4-2
\nGauff serves it out at 5-3, converting on her third match point<\/p>\n
\u201cShe takes the ball so early, you don\u2019t have a lot of time to react,\u201d Gauff said on court. \u201cOnce I got adjusted to the tempo, I felt like I could control the rallies when they went longer.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast time we played I didn\u2019t win, so I wanted to overcome that feeling. This week made me realize how much I love this sport. Even when it\u2019s tough, I enjoy the ups and downs of the journey.\u201d<\/p>\n
A win that adds to the bigger picture<\/p>\n
With the win, Gauff recorded her 103rd career Tier I\/WTA 1000 match victory before turning 23, moving into a tie for the second-most in that category — a mark that places her alongside some of the most accomplished early-career performers in the sport\u2019s recent history.<\/p>\n
Tier I \/ WTA 1000 match wins before age 23\u00a0
–Martina Hingis: 154
–Caroline Wozniacki: 103
–Coco Gauff: 103
–Victoria Azarenka: 101
–Maria Sharapova: 97<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI — When Coco Gauff last took the court, her week ended abruptly, forced to retire against Alexandra…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":486974,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,1602,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-486973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-text","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}