An ace to set the tone
Gauff opened with an ace. Eighty minutes later she was walking off Arthur Ashe Stadium into the second round.
The fourth seed beat Turkey’s Zeynep Sonmez 6-3, 6-4 on Tuesday night in New York, and the serve that has caused her so much trouble over the years behaved itself. The radar kept climbing past 120 mph. She broke Sonmez for a 4-2 lead in the opening set and never looked like giving it back.
The second set asked harder questions. Gauff broke Sonmez’s first service game, then watched the world No. 53 win three games in a row to level at 2-2 and push for a fourth. Sonmez earned break points in the sixth game. Gauff saved three of them.
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The game that turned it
“I think I was just trying not to panic,” Gauff said afterwards. “She started coming to the net and playing great tennis. That 3-all game was real important.”
Sonmez double-faulted on break point in the very next game. After that the match went quiet.
Getting out of the first round has rarely been this simple for Gauff. She has reached the fourth round or better in four of her seven previous appearances at Flushing Meadows, yet five times she has needed three sets just to survive the opening match. Tuesday took 80 minutes.
Rain shaped everything else about the day. A delay of almost four hours pushed back the start of play, more stoppages arrived in the evening, and at least five late matches were wiped off the schedule altogether. Gauff and Sonmez played under the Ashe roof and barely noticed.
She does not yet know her next opponent. Paula Badosa led Daria Kasatkina 6-1, 1-2 when their first-round match was suspended.
More than a trophy at stake
Gauff arrived in New York seeded fourth and ranked fourth, behind Aryna Sabalenka, Elena Rybakina and Jessica Pegula. All three of the chasers can leave with the top ranking. Rybakina only needs to reach the semi-finals to overtake Sabalenka, whatever else happens in the draw. If the Kazakh falls short, the door opens for Gauff, who would become world No. 1 for the first time by winning a second US Open title.
The form is there. She took the first of those titles in 2023, added Roland Garros in 2024, and beat Pegula 6-2, 6-4 in the Cincinnati final on 23 August.
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