Top players like Jessica Pegula, Elena Rybakina and, today, Jannik Sinner have all succumbed to the upset virus that has been sweeping through Roland Garros in recent days. But, that disease has not affected Coco Gauff in the least. She scraped past Egypt’s Mayar Sherif 6-3, 6-2 in the second round of the draw on Thursday. It was a memorable win for Gauff too – her 80th Grand Slam.
Even more impressive, she’s the youngest woman with 80 Grand Slam match wins since Maria Sharapova, who was 20 at the time, did it at the Australian Open in 2008. Though the scoreline looked deceptively simple, Thursday’s match on Court Suzanne Lenglen was a struggle from start to finish. Gauff and Sherif traded blows from the baseline with rally after rally, especially in the first set that took 71 minutes. The serve was pretty much out of the picture with 11 breaks in 17 games.
Sherif and Gauff were all square again at the start of the second set but the American broke at 2-all to take the last four games and seal the match. She offset her 23 unforced errors with her 23rd match victory, a huge backhand winner up the line. Meanwhile Sherif finished with 32 unforced errors and 18 winners.
Coco Gauff legacy
Gauff has 80 career Grand Slam victories, but by far the most on the terre battue, with her 29th win at Roland Garros on Thursday. She also has 11 at Wimbledon and 20 at the hard-court majors, the Australian and U.S. Open.
Later Thursday, the winner of a second-round match between unseeded Katie Boulter and No. 28 seed Anastasia Potapova will face the No. 4 seed and defending champion. Gauff is 2-2 against Potapova losing the last two meetings and 2-1 against Boulter winning their last two meetings.
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