Sparkling from start to finish ✨ @CocoGauff is up and running in Rome! #IBI23
Coco Gauff returned to Rome in impressive fashion destroying Yulia Putintseva in straight sets 6-0 6-1 to advance to the next round of the event.
Slow clay courts allow Coco Gauff to track down many balls and send them back. Sometimes just forcing your opponent to hit it one more time is a very good tactic and it proved really fruitful in this match. Putintseva couldn't hit through Gauff no matter how she tried and it was a problem throughout the match.
Things looked bleak rather early in this match as Gauff quickly jumped out to an early 2-0 lead. It became a 4-0 lead and then it transformed into a bagel that took only 29 minutes to bake. The second set was a bit more competitive as Putintseva found more solutions. She's a decent player so it was only natural though it didn't matter much in the grand scheme of things.
Gauff was still very dominant breaking Putintseva twice in that set to finish things off 6-1. Just an utterly impressive beatdown by Gauff that lasted less than an hour and saw her avoid facing any break points. That's very important for her as she can have trouble with her serve quite often.
Sparkling from start to finish ✨ @CocoGauff is up and running in Rome! #IBI23