Coco Gauff might have termed the rest of 2024 as an early pre-season, but she's been playing some of the best tennis she's played in recent weeks at the 2024 China Open.
This was Gauff's second match at the China Open after she won her opening one with some minor issues. Gauff arrived in China hoping for a reset after a dreadful US Open and tournaments leading up to that.
She has already made some changes by parting ways with her coach, Brad Gilbert. She even found a new person to coach her in a short period, Matt Daly, which is something analysts didn't think she would do so quickly.
Gauff turned a page after New York, including in mindset, admitting that these weeks are sort of a preparation for the next year for her. It hasn't looked like preparation so far, as she's been playing extremely well.
She had some minor issues in her first match, but for the most part, it was a good foundation. In her third-round match against Katie Boulter, Gauff held her serve without too many problems.
In time, she was able to create some break points and actually break to take a 4-2 lead. Then, she held her serve to make it 5-2, and after Boulter held for the 5-3 score, she had a chance to close it out.
It was then that the first issues appeared for the 20-year-old, as she played a bad game and got broken, which allowed Boulter to get back on serve and then hold for the 5-5.
These occasional struggles have been all too common for Gauff, who showed struggles in plenty of these end-of-match and end-of-set scenarios. Still, she was able to win the opening set 7-5.
She was the better player for much of that set, but it was still unfortunate that she had to play a couple more games. These are complications she needs to cut out of her game to become the properly dominant champion she aspires to be.
Even so, it was crucial for her to win the opening set because Boulter is quite streaky, and Gauff clearly wanted to avoid playing her into a great rhythm. That’s why an early break in the second set was crucial, and she was able to get that.
It was 3-1 for the American with a huge service game coming up. She easily won it to make it 4-1, and by that time, it was basically game over for the Brit. There was minimal chance of coming back, but she proved she could do it already in the first set.
However, what made it very unlikely was Gauff's play on her serve. She was tremendous and didn't drop a single point by the time the score showed 4-1. She won all of her points on her serve, and she generally served really well in this match—quite impressively so.
She admitted to working on it since the US Open, and it carried her to a simple win in this match, as she won 7-5, 6-2 to reach the fourth round of the 2024 China Open.
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