Coco Gauff drew a challenge with Paula Badosa in the second round of the 2026 US Open. She turned it into an opportunity to show how much she has steadied her game in recent months.
The tournament’s No. 4 seed dispatched Badosa 6-4, 7-6 on Thursday, overcoming in straight sets a veteran player against whom she has a losing record. Gauff will face another Spaniard, Cristina Bucsa, in the third round.
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Gauff was 3-5 against Badosa entering the match, with losses in their past two matches, at Berlin this year and in the quarterfinals of last year’s Australian Open. Any worries of a repeat lessened when Gauff broke Badosa midway through the first set and cruised from there.
A break in the second set gave Gauff a commanding lead, which Badosa only slightly complicated with her own break while down 3-4. They exchanged another pair of breaks after that, setting up a tiebreak to finish the match.
Gauff has been playing some of her best tennis in more than a year over the past few weeks, a span that includes a semifinal appearance at Wimbledon and a title in Cincinnati. She owes much of that to a serve that is finally behaving, as we saw in her first-round victory over Zeynep Sönmez.
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Across the match Thursday, Gauff committed five double-faults while getting 35 of 70 first serves (50%) in. The latter number isn’t ideal, but more important was how effective her shot was when it was going in.
The win keeps Gauff on track for her second US Open title and third Grand Slam. Assuming she takes care of business against Bucsa, she’ll get her first ranked opponent with the victor between No. 14 Iva Jovic and No. 17 Alexandra Eala, two of the sport’s most exciting rising stars.
A title at Flushing Meadows, combined with No. 2 Elena Rybakina failing to make the semifinal, would give Gauff the No. 1 WTA ranking for the first time in her career.
Source: sports.yahoo.com
