Serve Betrays Coco
Photo: Special to the NY Beacon
By Andrew Rosario
It wasn’t meant to be for Coco Gauff who was looking to win her second straight US Open Championship. In her third-round match against Elina Svitolina in which she lost her first set, Gauff would get herself straight to come back to win the next two sets getting her to the fourth round last Sunday at Arthur Ashe Stadium. Gauff faced fellow American and native New Yorker Emma Navarro and once again, Gauff would lose the first set. Unfortunately for her, she could not overcome her mistakes and ended up losing in 3 sets 6-3, 4-6, 6-3. As much as the pro Gauff crowd cheered her on, her serve betrayed her resulting in 19 double faults. Give much credit to Navarro who was 0-2 in her previous US Open apparencies. Said Navarro after losing the second set, “had a little bit of a lull there but I was able to regroup.”
Said Gauff of her serving issues, “It’s sometimes more of an emotional, mental thing, because if I go out on the practice court right now, I would make, like, 30 serves in a row. I’ve done it before. I think it’s also just kind of a mental hurdle that I have to get over. I definitely want to look at other things, because I don’t want to lose matches like this anymore.”
On Labor Day Monday, #6 Jessica Pegula took out Diana Shnaider 6-4, 6-2 getting her to the Grand Slam quarterfinal for the seventh time. Pegula has lost her previous 6 times in Grand Slam quarterfinals. Said Pegula after, “I’ll just try to draw from those experiences and how I felt going into the next match. But it’s just so tough. I’ll just try to draw on that experience and how maybe I’ve handled it in the past and what I’m looking to try and do mentally different this time. It’s really not that much different.”
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