Coco Gauff wins in Cincinnati despite service woes, sets up revenge match against Yastremska

Coco Gauff debuted with a victory at the Cincinnati Open and advanced to the third round after defeating Xinyu Wang 6-3, 6-2. The American returned to the courts after a disappointing exit in the Round of 16 of the Canadian Open, where she was completely outmatched by Victoria Mboko.

One of the issues Gauff has suffered from in her recent appearances is her serve, with low first-serve percentages and constant double faults plaguing her lately. While she secured a convincing victory against Wang, it was again a problem, with a total of eight double faults throughout the match, practically one for every service game she played in the first set.

The world No. 3 had the pressure on her side at the start, quickly facing a double fault and a couple of break points against her, but she managed to get out of the difficult situation. Immediately afterward, she got a break that put her ahead 2-0, giving her some peace of mind at the beginning of the match.

Wang showed as many problems with her serve as her opponent, although the American was the one who best took advantage of the return opportunities. By the sixth game, there were three breaks in Gauff's favor and two in Wang's favor, with the American only getting ahead 4-2 thanks to her first service game that she managed to save. Only at this point did both players manage their first service games to win comfortably, and there were no new break opportunities until the end, when Gauff took the set 6-3.

The two-time Grand Slam champion had a 56% first-serve percentage and won only 28% of the points on her second serve, while Wang had a 63% first-serve percentage, winning only 33% on her second serve.

Quickly at the start of the second set, both players held their first service games to love, maintaining the score at 1-1. The first chance of the set then came—this time for Gauff, who got her first break point and then with a great service game, went ahead 3-1. The American began to show good consistency on her serve—in fact, she went on to win 10 consecutive service points at the start of the second set, leaving the problems of the first set behind.

Wang, for her part, never finished finding solutions on the return, nor did she ever seem completely stable with her own serve. When the score was 4-2 in Gauff's favor, the American secured the double break—this time to love—and took a lead that was almost insurmountable. She had no problems closing out the victory 6-3, 6-2 after one hour and 11 minutes.

Again, the double faults appeared on Gauff's side, with a total of eight—all in the five service games she had in the first set. The American, however, rediscovered her form in the second set and seemed much more confident this time. In fact, she went from winning 51% of her service points to 84% in the second.

In the third round, she will face the Ukrainian Dayana Yastremska (32nd seed), who is coming from a three-set battle victory over Victoriya Tomova. For now, the head-to-head is favorable to Gauff at 3-1, although they have never faced each other on clay. In addition, their last encounter was just a month ago in the first round of Wimbledon, where the Ukrainian delivered an upset by eliminating the American in straight sets.