MELBOURNE, Australia — Coco Gauff got over the speed bump that tripped her up in the past two Grand Slams, beating Belinda Bencic of Switzerland in three sets Sunday to advance to the Australian Open quarterfinals.
Gauff, one of the biggest stars in the sport, lost in the fourth round at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. In Melbourne, she fought her way back from a set down, using her intrinsic competitive grit and a newly rediscovered fearlessness to dodge what would have been the biggest upset of the tournament so far with a 5-7, 6-2, 6-1 win.
It was far from perfect — mostly because of Bencic. The Olympic gold medalist in Tokyo four years ago was playing in her first Grand Slam since returning to tennis in late October, after giving birth to her first child. Bencic appeared on her way out of the tournament in the third round, until Naomi Osaka could not play through the pain of an abdominal injury and had to retire.
Bencic was a different player Sunday, employing a near-flawless steadiness to outlast Gauff in point after point, especially the longer ones.
Playing with little to lose against the world No. 3, Bencic planted her feet on the baseline and maneuvered Gauff from side to side until she opened enough space to guide the ball into the open court.
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Gauff, the 2023 U.S. Open champion, has won just about every match she has played since hiring a new coach, Matt Daly, in September. She wasn’t showing the trademark signals of her recent Grand Slam losses, littered with a slew of double faults and errors, even though she was behind.
She did double-fault twice to give Bencic the decisive break of serve in the first set, but her serve and forehand were not the problem Sunday for the first 75 minutes. An inspired Bencic was the problem, elongating points to her advantage. In the first set, Gauff won 35 of 60 points that lasted four shots or shorter, but only eight of 27 that went five shots or longer.
Belinda Bencic’s smooth groundstrokes had Coco Gauff in trouble for long stretches of their match. (William West / AFP via Getty Images)
For Gauff, the win tested what she has described as a new-found perspective on winning and losing.
-“As athletes, we get caught up and losing feels like the end of the world, and winning feels like something we should do, not something we should be grateful for,” she said ahead of the tournament.
“No one makes us feel like that except ourselves. I think I just realized it’s never that important. If I can step off the court and say I tried my best, that’s all I can ask for.”
Adopting that sort of perspective can be easy when you are winning 18 of 20 matches, which is what Gauff did ahead of the Australian Open. Daly has coached her to adopt a new grip on her serve and to be more imposing with her forehand; her tennis has looked much more secure than any other time in the past year.
Maintaining that perspective after losing a set for the first time since the WTA Tour Finals in November — which she won — presented a different challenge. Gauff rose to it. She added 6mph to her average first-serve speed and reduced the number of longer points dramatically, from 27 to 15. She broke Bencic’s serve early, had a brief scare in the the seventh game, then cruised the rest of the way. She played like someone with no fear of losing.
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Bencic left the court at a set apiece for an extended break. Gauff slugged some water, and after a couple minutes in her chair she headed back into the sun of a humid, 87-degree afternoon and hit some practice serves.
With Bencic in the early months of her comeback, there was always the chance that her legs would go, especially against Gauff, a product of South Florida whose legs could probably last nine sets if she needed them to. It didn’t quite happen that way.
At 1-2 on serve, two brutal net cords sandwiched between a rare second-shot miss from Bencic handed Gauff a break. Bencic, who had been regaining the control that saw her joystick Gauff this way and that in the first set, couldn’t believe her luck. She didn’t win another game.
(Top photo: Quinn Rooney / Getty Images)
