She applauded her opponent. Twice.
Some matches get won without the winner ever really having to look up. This was not one of those. Coco Gauff paid attention to this one.
Twice she stopped to clap Zeynep Sonmez. Once for a ball hauled out of the corner and struck back down the line on the run. Once for a volley with an odd bit of spin on it that barely made it over. Sonmez had her moments.
The rest went to Gauff. 6-3, 6-4. Second round.
“I know I can raise my level if I need to, and I like pushing my opponent to stay at that level for the whole match,” said the world number four. “And if she does, I clap and walk off the court with my head held high.”
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Twelve months ago she arrived here in pieces
Her serve had fallen apart. A new coach had been brought in on the eve of the tournament, which left roughly no time to fix anything.
She scraped through the first round and then lost in straight sets to Naomi Osaka in the last 16.
The build-up this year reads differently. Cincinnati champion. Semi-finals at Wimbledon and in Toronto. Players walk onto court differently when the previous month has gone like that.
The 2023 blueprint
Gauff also won Cincinnati in 2023. What followed was the US Open title, the first American teenager to take it since Serena Williams in 1999, with Aryna Sabalenka beaten in the final.
Same run-up, three years on.
The draw is not doing her any favours yet. Round two brings Paula Badosa or Daria Kasatkina. New York is also soaked: rain arrived on Monday night, only Arthur Ashe and Louis Armstrong have retractable roofs, and a stack of matches has already been shoved back to Wednesday.
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