Coco Gauff was one of the players that stepped out for the first day of the Dubai DFT Championships and she prevailed against
Ekaterina Alexandrova to reach R2.
It was a very exciting match in Dubai today between Gauff and Alexandrova with the American ultimately coming out on top 7-6(3) 2-6 7-6(8). The match lasted over two hours and it was many twist and turns. The opening set was Gauff jump out to a 3-1 lead after which the Russian had a run of her own eventually taking a 5-4 lead. She then served for the set but failed to clinch it so we ended up in a tiebreak where Gauff proved more composed winning it 7-4.
The 2nd set was a complete downer for Gauff who lost her serve early on and never truly recovered. The Russian would later add another before closing it out at 6-2. Despite losing that set convincingly she did not collapse and broke Alexandrova immediately in the 3rd. The Russian would make it 1-1 in the next game but Gauff would go on a 4-game run taking the 5-2 lead. Alexandrova would not go down easily and she pulled one break back to make it 5-4.
Then Gauff served for the match for a 2nd time but once again she failed to close it out losing the game to make it 5-5. Gauff broke Alexandrova to take a 6-5 lead but failed to serve out the match for a 3rd time. In the tiebreak Gauff saved two match points en route to the 10-8 victory.
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