Coco Gauff lost to Jelena Ostapenko in Australia earlier this year however, this time around, at the 2023 US Open, it went very differently.
This matchup should have been a very exciting one, as Ostapenko loves to play the villain, and this was the perfect match to do so. She was facing America's darling Gauff, who many want to win this US Open. Gauff was likely to win, but probably no one thought the match would be so one-sided, especially after the Latvian defeated world no. 1 Iga Swiatek.
Well, at least that was the case in the opening set. Ostapenko came out flat, missing anything and everything, totaling 15 unforced errors in the first set. The set itself featured only six games as Gauff served Ostapenko a bagel.
The Latvian couldn't do anything or rather couldn't hit anything. She started the second by losing her serve but expectedly found some rhythm, breaking back immediately. That was the first game she won in the entire match, and it came after Gauff played a somewhat unserious game.
She really didn't want to allow Ostapenko to find her tennis because she's pretty unstoppable when that happens. Despite holding a 40-15 lead in the next game, Ostapenko allowed Gauff to battle back and win the game, and that was pretty much it.
Her biggest problem was obviously not being sharp from the baseline as well, just not serving well. Gauff had plenty of chances to attack her serve, especially with her newfound aggression, and it worked well for her.
Even when she started to hit a bit better, she couldn't get over the hump. There were plenty of break points in the second set as Gauff didn't play that well, but Ostapenko didn't do much with it. The final score was 6-0 6-2 for Gauff, who moved on to her maiden US Open semi-final.
Ostapenko had 13 winners and 36 unforced errors in this one.
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