Coco Gauff didn’t realize she had lost five straight matches to players ranked in the top 50. She also didn’t know she had lost 11 points in a row, which led to her losing the first set to Elina Svitolina in the third round of the U.S. Open on Friday.
At that moment, Gauff knew one thing for sure: “I needed a reset.” So before starting the second set, the 20-year-old from Florida went to the bathroom, changed part of her outfit, and splashed water on her face.
When Gauff returned to the court, she turned things around and defended her first Grand Slam title by beating the 27th-seeded Svitolina 3-6, 6-3, 6-3.
“Felt like a new person coming out,” Gauff said. “I just didn’t want to leave the court with any regrets.”
Novak Djokovic, the other defending champion, was surprised in the third round with a 6-4, 6-4, 2-6, 6-4 loss to 28th-seeded Alexei Popyrin. Popyrin will face No. 20 seed France Tiafoe, who outlasted 13th-seeded Ben Shelton 4-6, 7-5, 6-7 (5), 6-4, 6-3 in a 4-hour, 3-minute match to reach the fourth round at Flushing Meadows for the fifth year in a row.
After making many mistakes early at Arthur Ashe Stadium, Gauff managed to win nine of 11 games in a row and won again despite losing the first set. This happened three times last year on her way to winning the 2023 trophy at Flushing Meadows, including in the final against Aryna Sabalenka.
“It was in my mind today. It gave me a lot of confidence,” Gauff said, “just because it felt like déjà vu a little bit.”
On Sunday, Gauff will play No. 13 Emma Navarro, one of her teammates from the Paris Olympics, for a spot in the quarterfinals. Navarro had beaten Gauff in the fourth round at Wimbledon.
“I did a good job of neutralizing her serve and just playing really aggressive from the baseline and pushing back against her groundstrokes,” Navarro, who is from South Carolina and won an NCAA title for Virginia, said about their previous match. “And then always getting one more ball back in the court.”
Navarro moved on Friday with a 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 win against No. 19 Marta Kostyuk. In other women’s fourth-round matches scheduled for the afternoon, No. 7 Zheng Qinwen will play No. 24 Donna Vekic, and No. 26 Paula Badosa will face Wang Yafan.
No. 2 Sabalenka defeated No. 29 Ekaterina Alexandrova 2-6, 6-1, 6-2 in the latest-starting women’s match in U.S. Open history and will go up against No. 33 Elise Mertens, who won in three sets against No. 14 Madison Keys.
The first men’s fourth-round match set was No. 6 Andrey Rublev against No. 9 Grigor Dimitrov. No. 8 Casper Ruud will play No. 12 Taylor Fritz, and No. 4 Alexander Zverev will face American Brandon Nakashima after finishing his four-set win over Tomas Martin Etcheverry at 2:35 a.m.
Zheng vs. Vekic is a rematch of the gold medal match from the Summer Games four weeks ago, which Zheng won.
Vekic had defeated Gauff in the third round at the Olympics, which was part of Gauff’s recent struggles against top-50 players. This was also part of a recent slump where Gauff had won only five of her last nine matches.
This is a big change from a year ago, when Gauff won 18 of 19 matches, including 12 in a row, leading up to two titles on hard courts and then the U.S. Open championship. She became the first U.S. teenager to win at Flushing Meadows since Serena Williams in 1999.
By the end of the first set against Svitolina, it looked like Gauff might lose again. Her stats showed 16 unforced errors — nine on backhands — and just seven winners. She had only 45% of her first serves in and went 0 for 3 on break points. She let Svitolina win 19 of 28 points that lasted more than four strokes.
Gauff improved her stats in the last two sets as she tried to be more aggressive with her forehands and more careful with her backhands. Her coaches also suggested she engage the crowd more, which helped her performance.
