Gauff makes her debut with “bicycle”, Osaka is eliminated

Madrid (Spain) – North American Coco Gauff started her participation in the WTA 1000 in Madrid with a bang. The 20-year-old made her debut in the competition this Thursday and was not aware of the experienced Dutch Arantxa Rus, 33 years old, starring in a “bicycle” by recording the splits of 6/0 and 6/0 in just 51 minutes of match.

Classified for the third round, the current number 3 in the world has already equaled last year’s result and is trying to repeat her best campaign on Spanish clay, where she reached the round of 16 in 2022. To do so, she will have to get past Ukrainian Dayana Yastremska, who needed to recover from a “tire” in the first set against Colombian Emiliana Arango, achieving a comeback with scores of 0/6, 7/5 and 6/4.

With an impeccable performance, Gauff won 12 of the 15 points played in his service games in the opening set, despite the low success rate of 53% on the first serve. Even so, the North American did not give up any chance of breaking to her opponent, who did not gain a single point with her second serve in the entire period and had a 38% success rate with the first.

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In the second set, Rus threatened his opponent a little more and had four break-points in his favor, but was unable to convert any of them. On the other hand, he was unable to save the three break chances he offered to Gauff and thus remained zero in the final score of the match. The Dutchwoman won only 20% of the points with both the first and second serves, winning just three points with her serve in the entire partial.

Keys advances and Osaka bows out in the second round

Whoever makes it past the duel between Gauff and Yastremska will have to face the winner of the match between Madison Keys and Liudmila Samsonova. While the North American beat two tiebreaks from Romanian Irina Begu, scoring 7/6 (7-3) and 7/6 (8-6), the Russian put an end to Japanese Naomi Osaka’s participation in the tournament.

After beating Belgian Greet Minnen in her debut, the former world number 1 was no match for Samsonova, who is the 15th main favorite on the Madrid clay court and secured her qualification to the next round with a 6/2, 4/6 triumph and 7/5 after 2h22 of confrontation.

After a start of broad dominance by the Russian, with 92% success in points with the first serve and 71% with the second, Osaka showed a reaction by winning the second set and taking the decision to the decisive part. However, the Japanese suffered a lot on her serve, offering break points in four of the six games in which she served in the third set. In two of them, Samsonova achieved the break and, even after conceding the draw in the fourth game, won 7/5.