Coco Gauff, Amanda Anisimova and Jessica Pegula, the trio of Americans in the Top 10, opened their Australian Open campaigns in Melbourne on Monday with relatively routine wins, but a fourth, Emma Navarro, failed to get off the line.
Thanks, guys. Thanks for all the love. It’s really good to be back here. I feel like it’s my second home here in Australia. I like playing here. The crowd, the atmosphere, I love how loud it gets. Hopefully I’ll play some night matches this week. But yeah, it’s just a beautiful city, beautiful courses, and I think every player shares that feeling. Amanda Anisimova
Gauff, the world number 3, started her quest for a first title Down Under with a 6-2 6-3 win over Kamilla Rakhimova of Uzbekistan. It took her one hour and 39 minutes to complete her task.
“I’m trying not to put so much pressure on myself in the first round,” said Gauff, a semifinalist here in 2024. “I just want to win the tournament, so whether I lose the first round or the final, I don’t think I would be that satisfied, so until then I’m just fine.
“Winning is the only satisfying result, but that doesn’t mean I’m not proud of myself throughout the tournament. I’m only satisfied when I win.”
It’s her seventh appearance at Melbourne Park, and she’s sporting a new look this year, her wavy locks now tinted orange and sporting a lilac ensemble to match her racket.
“I thought it would help me since there’s another ginger doing really well,” Gauff smiled, referring to two-time defending champion Jannik Sinner during her briefing with reporters at media day. “Maybe it will bring me some luck, because he has a pretty good track record here, and I don’t. So we’ll see.”
While Gauff only lost four games against the world number 93, the first set in particular was more exciting than it seemed, as five of the seven games went to deuce, but Gauff won three.
Predictably, Gauff struggled with her serve early on, coughing up six double faults in the opener alone, while winning just 27% of points when forced to produce a second serve.
She also conceded six break points but saved five, two of which came in a first service game of five deuces, and she smashed three more in the sixth game to extend her lead to 5-1, before needing six set points to clinch the opener.
Things were much more under control in the second, however, as Gauff turned a 1-0 deficit into a 5-1 lead without facing deuce, but Rakhimova wasn’t quite ready to quit and she took a 4 deuce service game to force the 21-year-old American to serve for the match.
The two-time Grand Slam champion put on a nail-biting match to add another score to the 24-year-old Rakhimova’s tally, but Gauff then sealed the win with her sixth break of service.
“I would have preferred to hold serve in that one game, but I think that’s the beauty of a good returner, you know you have a great chance to break in almost every game,” Gauff said later. “I thought I did a good job, I didn’t rush the point[s]She plays really low, so I just did my best to get the ball up.”
The win, her 75th at Grand Slam level, gives Gauff a second-round meeting with left-hander Olga Danilovic of Serbia, who needed three sets to beat seven-time major champion Venus Williams on Sunday.
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Anisimova and Pegula followed Gauff’s lead on Monday and wasted no time in dismissing their opponents from the first round. The fourth seed defeated Switzerland’s Simona Waltert 6-3 6-2 in exactly an hour at the Margaret Court Arena after sixth-seeded Pegula powered past Russia’s Anastasia Zakharova 6-2 6-1 in 66 minutes at the John Cain Arena.
Anisimova feels at home in Australia, and she made a fast start, breaking in the second game and taking a 2-0 lead, but Waltert immediately broke back and they traded positions until the American earned another for 4-2.
She needed three set points to claim the opener in 35 minutes, despite uneven play evidenced by the American hitting just five winners and making 15 unforced errors.
The second proved to be very different, in which Anisimova was almost flawless, winning all 16 points on her serve and in complete control throughout.
“Thanks, guys,” Anisimova said in her on-court interview. “Thanks for all the love. It’s really good to be back here. I feel like this is my second home here in Australia. I love playing here. The crowd, the atmosphere, I love how loud it gets.”
“Hopefully I’ll play some night games this week. But yeah, it’s just a beautiful city, beautiful courses, and I think every player shares that feeling.”
The two-time Slam runner-up now faces Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic or Hungary’s Panna Udvardy in the second round, neither of whom she has faced yet in her career.
Sixth seed Jessica Pegula defeated Anastasia Zakharova in 3 sets in her opener at John Cain Arena on Monday afternoon at Melbourne Park
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Pegula treated fans to a clinical performance as she dropped just 11 points on her serve for the match, including just 2 in the first set.
“That was a pretty ideal situation that just happened,” Pegula said in her on-court interview. “So that’s always good, you know. When those come around, you take it, because I’ve seen a lot of really tough games in the last few days and I’m glad I’m not quite there yet.”
“So yeah, if you get a good win and play well, you just have to be happy with it, take it and move on.”
The queen of 3-setters broke immediately, setting the tone for a match in which she held break points in all eight of Zakharova’s service games.
The Russian, ranked 105 in the PIF WTA Rankings, managed to fend off Pegula in two service games in the first set.
Trailing 5-1, she saved three set points in a 5-deuce match, including a rally in which Pegula looped a ball around the netpost to keep the point alive, before Zakharova calmly finished with an open-court winner.
However, Pegula closed out the set in the next game and never looked back. He dropped just one more the rest of the match before sealing the victory with a backhand fired down the line.
The victory takes her to the round of 64, where she will face her compatriot and doubles partner McCartney Kessler, against whom Pegula leads the head-to-head 1-0 after beating her in straight sets in last year’s Austin final.
However, 15th seed Emma Navarro suffered a shock loss in her opener, losing 3-6, 6-3, 6-3 to world number 50 Magda Linette of Poland, in a continuation of poor form from late last year when the American suffered two straight defeats.
Despite starting the match well and claiming the first set, she let her opponent back into the match with a series of unforced errors and paid the price.
The match eventually ended with Linette claiming the final two sets and earning a meeting with another American, Ann Li, while Navarro would drop further down the rankings with the defeat.
Storm Hunter thrilled her home fans with a straight sets victory against Jessica Bouzas Maneiro on Day 2 of the Australian Open
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Elsewhere on Monday, Storm Hunter defeated world number 40 Jessica Bouzas Maneiro of Spain 6-4 6-4, electrifying her home fans.
The straight-set win was a slow start for the Aussie as Bouzas Maneiro secured the first two games inside five minutes, but after trailing 0-3 in the first set and 1-4 in the second, something clicked into place for Hunter.
With Bouzas Maneiro committing 24 forced errors to Hunter’s 18, the Australian’s revised tactics were a bull’s eye.
“[Bouzas Maneiro]“I’m a quality player who hits a really good ball,” Hunter said. “I knew I could catch her off guard with the speed of my shots. So for me, I felt like I had to really focus on my serve first and apply pressure [her] with my serve, and then I can dictate the points from that.
“That was the most important thing: being 4-1 down in the second [set]I just gave her a little rhythm and she was able to take control. So I just had to go back to not giving her rhythm, trying to control the points on my terms.
A year ago, the 31-year-old thought her time playing singles tennis was over when an Achilles tendon injury in 2024 forced Hunter to pause her playing career and instead focus on rehabilitation and training to recover and rebuild her strength.
The atmosphere at the KIA Arena was electric on Monday morning, with a green-and-gold crowd cheering her on, and the Melburnian took a moment to take it all in, leading the crowd through the Aussie-coded chant of ‘Aussie Aussie Aussie, oi oi oi’ after her win.
“I knew I had to come [the crowd] I was involved a little bit, just to get the energy going and to help me out,” said Hunter, who will face world No. 70 Hailey Baptiste in the second round.
Seventeenth seed Victoria Mboko ended the hopes of wildcard Emerson Jones in their opening match on Monday
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Priscilla Hon followed Hunter in the second round, who was engaged in a three-set battle with Marina Stakusic before the Canadian retired with an injury.
Hon was praised for her sportsmanship after her opponent collapsed from cramps, helping Stakusic into a wheelchair and even holding her leg up as she was wheeled off the field.
The 27-year-old, who led 1-6, 6-4, 5-3 when the match ended, will face American Iva Jovic, who defeated her compatriot Katie Volynets 6-2 6-3.
Canadian teenager Victoria Mboko advanced with a 6-4 6-1 victory over Australian wildcard Emerson Jones.
Mboko, making her first appearance as a No. 17 seed in a Grand Slam main draw, broke serve in the 7th game of the opening set and held on to take serve.
The Canadian then broke twice early in the second and raced to a 4-0 lead before breaking Jones again in the 7th game to close out the match in 1 hour and 12 minutes, and she will next face American Caty McNally.
From a first-set bagel in front of a pro-Alexandra Eala crowd, American Alycia Parks had her back against the wall before producing a stunning 0-6 6-3 6-2 comeback win to beat the Filipino.
Parks started hitting her spots, converting more of her first serves and becoming more aggressive in the final two sets, which proved to be the key to overcoming the rowdy crowd.
“It was very difficult,” Parks told reporters. ‘I expected it, but I [also] wasn’t. She certainly has a good audience. I just kept telling myself to stay in the zone.”
Among other results on Monday, 14th seed Clara Tauson of Denmark was a 6-3 6-3 winner over Dalma Galfi of Hungary; while Czech Karolina Muchova, seeded 19, powered her way past Romania’s Jacqueline Cristian, 6-3 7-6(6); 13th seed Linda Noskova, also of the Czech Republic, advanced with a 6-3 6-0 win against Darja Semenistaja of Latvia; and Peyton Stearns upset compatriot Sofia Kenin, No. 27 seed and former AO champion, 6-3 6-2.
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