MADRID — Fourth seed Coco Gauff overcame a difficult start, losing the opening set without winning a game, to defeat Dayana Yastremska with a scoreline of 0-6, 6-2, 7-5 in a hard-fought second-round encounter on Thursday night at the Mutua Madrid Open.
This victory was notable as it marked only the second occasion in Gauff`s career at the WTA level where she has won a match after dropping the first set 6-0. The previous instance was four years ago when she defeated Elise Mertens in Eastbourne.
Gauff now holds a perfect 3-0 record against Yastremska, with all their meetings taking place on clay courts. This latest match proved to be a real test, with the decisive final set alone lasting over an hour.
In the final set, Gauff quickly established a 3-0 lead by breaking Yastremska`s serve twice. However, Yastremska responded by breaking back twice herself, leveling the set at 3-3. Gauff managed another break to move ahead 5-3, but Yastremska showed resilience, saving three match points on her serve to draw level again at 5-5.
Gauff secured a crucial break to take a 6-5 lead and then successfully served out the match to claim the win. Service games were challenging for both players throughout the match, with a total of seven breaks occurring in their 14 combined service games in the final set.
For Yastremska, this loss puts her career record against Top 10 ranked opponents at 4 wins and 19 losses.
The match on Manolo Santana Stadium had a similar narrative to an earlier contest on the same court, where second seed Iga Swiatek also came back from a set and a break down against 19-year-old Filipina Alexandra Eala to secure a three-set victory.
Gauff is aiming to advance further in the tournament, needing two more wins to reach the quarterfinals and surpass her previous best results in her five appearances in Madrid. At 21 years old, Gauff is the youngest player since the format was introduced in 2009 to win eight consecutive opening matches in WTA 1000 events on clay.
Gauff`s next opponent will be fellow American Ann Li, who advanced by defeating 25th seed Leylah Fernandez 6-4, 3-6, 6-4. Their third-round match is scheduled for Saturday.
Rupert Caldwell