Pumped up Gauff reaches third round
Coco Gauff pumping her fists and screaming ‘‘Come on!’’ to celebrate a Grand Slam victory is already becoming a regular occurrence. At 15, she’s now the youngest player to reach the US Open’s third round since 1996, quickly proving her captivating run to week two at Wimbledon last month was no fluke.
And what a showdown comes next: Gauff will face No. 1 seed and defending champion Naomi Osaka tomorrow.
‘‘This is just the beginning, I promise,’’ Gauff told an appreciative crowd that chanted her name at Louis Armstrong Stadium in New York during a 6-2 4-6 6-4 win over Timea Babos of Hungary.
‘‘I was tested a lot. I think we were both just testing each other,’’ Gauff said. ‘‘If I didn’t win that last point, maybe she would have won the match.’’
The Floridian is putting together another captivating run, just like she did on the way to the fourth round at Wimbledon last month in her Grand Slam debut.
Another young American woman is also making Slam waves: Taylor Townsend, 23, whose pure, raw emotion came through after she delivered one last crisp forehand volley to complete her 2-6 6-3 7-6 (4) upset of two-time major champion Simona Halep.
Townsend, a qualifier ranked 116th, clenched her fists, raised her arms and yelled, ‘‘Yes! Yes!’’ before patting her heart.
Moments later, Townsend’s voice cracked and tears began to flow as she told fans in Arthur Ashe Stadium, ‘‘I mean, this means a lot. It’s been a long journey. Just haven’t been able to get over the hump.’’
Townsend pulled off the biggest victory of her up-and-down career with an entertaining, net-rushing, serve-and-volleying brand of lefty tennis against former No 1 Halep.
‘‘It’s been a long road. A lot of haters. A lot of people who weren’t sure. I mean, I’ve heard it for a really long time that I was never going to make it, that I wasn’t going to be able to break through or do this or do that,’’ Townsend said. ‘‘This was a huge, monumental moment. It was a very defining moment for me to realise that I belong here.’’
She was marked for greatness long ago.
Townsend won singles and doubles junior titles at the 2012 Australian Open, turned pro that year at age 16, then cracked the top 100 in the rankings while still a teen. But a drop out of the WTA’S top 300 followed and she came into Thursday 9-16 at Grand Slam tournaments and 0-10 against top10 women.
Against Wimbledon champion Halep, she wasted a pair of match points, one via a double-fault, while serving for the win at 5-4 in the third, but never wavered. Townsend then saved a match point for Halep at 6-5.
‘‘When I’ve played her before, I was just trying to make balls [in] I think I played not to lose,’’ said Townsend, who’d been 0-3 against Halep. ‘‘And today I played to win.’’
Gauff, meanwhile, covered the court so well, tracking down shot after shot from Babos, running so fast and so fearlessly that she ended up face-down on court after falling.
She also pounded serves at up to 118 mph, recording nine aces, and mixed in drop shots to great effect.
‘‘A 15-year-old girl with power on the serve like this – I wish I had that when I was younger,’’ said Babos, a 26-year-old ranked 112th in singles and seeded No. 1 in doubles. ‘‘If she continues like this, it’s definitely a very bright future.’’
Townsend and Gauff provided the most attention-grabbing results on a busy day 4, with all but nine of day three’s scheduled singles matches carried over because of rain. The weather was just right, and so result after result poured in, including Andrea Petkovic’s 6-4 6-4 elimination of two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova and unseeded American Denis Kudla’s 7-5 7-5 0-6 6-3 win over No. 27 Dusan Lajovic.
Three-time US Open champion Rafael Nadal reached the third round when his opponent, Thanasi Kokkinakis, withdrew with an injured right shoulder.