Seventh seed Coco Gauff was twice a point away from being pushed to a third set by Emma Raducanu at the Australian Open, but steadied herself to win 6-3, 7-6 (7/4).
Key points:
- Gauff and Raducanu had never previously met in a WTA Tour-level match
- Raducanu pushed Gauff to a second-set tiebreak before the American prevailed
- Gauff has not reached the third round in Melbourne since 2020
It was the first head-to-head meeting between the two young stars of world tennis, a point not loss on 18-year-old Gauff.
“This was a long-anticipated match-up, basically since the draw came out,” Gauff said.
Gauff’s win saw her move into the third round at Melbourne Park for the first time since 2020. She is the youngest seed in the women’s field.
Raducanu, 20, has not made it past the second round at a major since she won the 2021 US Open as a teenager.
The Briton was the first qualifier to claim a major trophy.
Currently ranked 77th, Raducanu has been dealing with an ankle injury. Yet, she was close to extending the match against Gauff into a third set, having held a pair of set points while ahead 5-4 in the second.
On the first chance, Raducanu sailed a backhand long. On the second, she dumped an attempted drop shot into the net.
That helped Gauff hold serve and more miscues by Raducanu tilted the tiebreaker — and the match — the American’s way.
“I just told myself to hang in there,” Gauff said.
Among other results in the women’s draw, Spanish qualifier Cristina Bucșa saved a match point in the second-set tiebreak before beating Canada’s former US Open winner Bianca Andreescu 2-6, 7-6 (9/7), 6-4.
Bucșa’s win sets up a third-round clash with Polish top seed Iga Świątek, who advanced earlier in the day with a 6-2, 6-3 victory over Colombian Camila Osorio,
American Sloane Stephens, another former US Open champion, fell to a straight-sets defeat to Anastasia Potapova of Russia, 7-6 (7/2), 6-4.
Latvian 17th seed Jeļena Ostapenko, the 2017 French Open champion, survived a three-setter against Hungary’s Anna Bondár, winning 6-7 (5/7), 7-5, 6-0.
AP/ABC