Coco Gauff returned to the tennis courts at the 2024 Cincinnati Open as a defending champion, and she shockingly lost to Yulia Putintseva in her first match at the WTA 1000 event.
Last year's Cincinnati Open was a tremendous campaign for the young American, who won the trophy in Cincinnati. After playing some inspired tennis, she made the final, in which she bested Karolina Muchova to win her maiden WTA 1000 trophy.
That run was, in many ways, the pivotal one for her rise last year because it gave her the confidence that would eventually carry her to the US Open trophy. Beating Iga Swiatek during that run certainly helped, and that win remains the only one she has over the Polish player.
They've played a couple of times since then, with no success for the American player. Her form this year hasn't been as good as last year. Before coming to Cincinnati last year, Gauff had won the Citi Open in Washington and did well in Canada.
Neither of those things happened this year; in fact, her Canadian Open campaign was bad. She hoped to turn things around in Cincinnati, but it didn't start well. Her opponent was Yulia Putintseva, who showed her talent by beating some top players in recent weeks.
The Kazakhstani player broke first in this match, and while Gauff broke back, Putintseva still won the opening set 6-4. It was a complicated set in which both struggled, but overall, Putintseva emerged on top.
Gauff struggled greatly on her serve, having to play for many points, but she did much better in the following two sets. The second set was an impressive one from Gauff.
She avoided giving Putintseva any break points, and that was crucial. That was much better than in the opening set, in which her opponent had six break points. She also did much better on Putintseva's serve, which gave the Kazakhstani more trouble overall.
It was just a much better display from Gauff, who won the second set 6-2 to force the decider. That was a huge momentum swing for the American because the crowd heavily backed her, and her game started to click.
Putintseva is a very good player but also very beatable. Unfortunately for the home crowd, Gauff couldn't use her early break point in the final set. The Kazakhstani player is known as a big fighter, and she rarely gives up.
That's the kind of grit a player needs to have when facing Gauff because she's the same. The serve continued to be a huge issue for Gauff, who couldn't keep her first serve over 50%.
She's been tinkering with her serve recently, so some struggles were expected, but this was a bit too much for her to succeed, and on top of that, she missed out on a break chance in the fourth game of the final set.
Still, Gauff broke at 3-2 to make it 4-2, but then she completely lost that lead. From up 4-2, Gauff found herself down 4-5, with Putintseva having a chance to finish the match.
She could do that relatively easily, handing Gauff a painful loss, continuing her bad run in recent weeks, and eliminating the defending champion, 6-4, 2-6, 6-4.