Coco Gauff walked off the Arthur Ashe Stadium on Thursday evening with still wet eyes and a fist raised high. The World No. 3 had experienced a new serving test, this time against Donna Vekić, but she still came intact-emotionally frayed but victoriously-with a 7-6 (5), 6-2 victory that lifted her in the third round of the US Open.
The competition was less a linear triumph than a public unraveling and recovery, a window on the psychological toll to make its main shot in real time. The seven double mistakes of Gauff in the first set reminded the low points of her defending defense last year, then 19 her campaign. On 5-4 down, broken by two consecutive missed services, she sagged in her chair, buried her face in a towel and cried.
“It feels human, I think,” she said later. “As a athlete, people ignore that side of us. People say,” You are not 3 in the world, you should be better. ” But at the end of the day, if I hadn’t picked up racket tomorrow, I had a career that many would dream of.
Reset she did. When Vekić let a medical time -out in the first set on her right shoulder, Gauff remained on the field, the practice served in the same place as music scaled for an almost full house in the world’s largest tennis stadium. The scene looked more like an open air lesson in biomechanics more than a big championship. “It’s hard to change everything for such a big tournament,” said Gauff. “But I know that this is the right step forward for the future, and this is the biggest test of all. It will only become easier from here”.
The man responsible for the renovation, biomechanics coach Gavin Macmillan, has recently been on her side before the tournament. He previously worked with Aryna Sabalenka to rebuild her delivery and is now in the Gauff’s US Open. “He is not a media man,” Gauff said with a smile. “I just don’t want to disappoint him for me. He knows 100% what he is doing”.
Despite her crisis, Gauff clawed his way to a tiebreak, where her superior athletics from the baseline finally tipped the balance. When Vekić threw a Forehand Long to surrender the set, Gauff’s mother jumped out of her chair behind Macmillan and shouted: “Come on! Let’s go!”
The release wore in the dressing room between sets, where Gauff said that splashing water held on her face and her breathing. She returned to look composed. The second set told the story of a young player who was able to compartmentalize, even while her serve betrays. She only hit one double error, held comfortably and broke Vekić twice. The Croatian, who had defeated Gauff at last year’s Olympic Games on the way to silver, faded under the tension of her arm problems and her own result of errors. Gauff closed the game with a fresh backhand winner on her second match point, this time a barbaric vulture sent in the air in the celebration.
If there was a turning point, it can come out of the stands. Among those in the Ashe, Simone Biles was fresh from her own golden redemption at the Olympic Games in Paris. Gauff saw her between points and pulled strength out of sight. “She’s on my Mount Rushmore from athletes with Serena,” said Gauff. “Everything she experienced mentally is something that I followed closely. To see her there tonight, gave me the memory I needed … I was lucky to just come from talking to her, so I could tell her personally.”
The double large champion has not hidden how loading feels this week. A three-set battle with Ajla Tomljanović in the first round had already tested her nerve. “This is one of the most nervous tournaments for me in general, and moreover it is a lot,” she said. “There has been a lot to me this time, more than normal. But I think I showed today that I can get up after I felt the worst that I ever felt on the field”.
Even when recognizing the pressure, Gauff leans on humor to survive. When an ESPN interviewer tried to clean up her comment that “at least my outfit looked good,” she doubled. “Sometimes you have to be able to laugh at yourself,” she said with a grin. “Even after I was lost in Wimbledon, I had something like that, well, it was a bad loss, but at least my outfit looked good, so it gave people something else to talk about. I am not a fake -positive person. When I am positive, I mean it.”
There is still enough to resolve – especially the serve, a project that probably extends beyond New York – but Gauff believes that the test is something more difficult. “This entire tournament will stay with me for the rest of my career,” she said. “If I can get through two difficult competitions with the feeling that I feel, I know that I can endure almost everything.”
Then she faces Magdalena Frech, the 28th seed from Poland. Whether her traced movement can withstand another round of control will be the central question. For now, however, Gauff remains: shaken, tearing, but still very in the fight.
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