French Open: Coco Gauff survives stern test to reach second round

Coco Gauff came back from a set down to beat Spain's Rebeka Masarova and advanced to the women's singles second round

Paris: Last year’s finalist and No.6 seed Coco Gauff came back from a set down to beat Spain’s Rebeka Masarova and advanced to the women’s singles second round at the French Open here on Tuesday.

The American tennis player was in a spot of bother in her opening round match against Masarova after losing the first set but fought back and go through 3-6, 6-1, 6-2 on Court Suzanne-Lenglen at the Roland Garros here.

---

She will next face Austria’s Julia Grabher, in a rematch from last month’s Billie Jean King Cup Qualifier. Rabat runner-up Grabher was a 6-2, 6-3 winner over Arantxa Rus.

“Paris is my favourite city in the world,” she told the delighted crowd after winning her first-round match.

The 2022 finalist Gauff had beaten Masarova 6-1, 6-1 in the final of the ASB Classic in January, but the first clay-court meeting between two former Roland Garros junior champions proved more complicated and started on a difficult note for the American.

World No.71 Masarova, a winner of the 2016 girls’ title in Paris, started strongly to win the match’s first three games and saved all eight break points she faced in the first set before Gauff worked her way back into the match.

From 1-1 in the second set, the 19-year-old Gauff won seven straight games, finally breaking serve for a 3-1 lead in the middle set. The No.6 seed ended up breaking Masarova’s serve five times on eight chances in the second and third sets to complete the comeback in 1 hour and 46 minutes.