Coco Gauff says there was a time when she never would have considered attending an extracurricular event like TwitchCon before a tournament. But that\u2019s exactly what she did this week in her lead-up to the inaugural San Diego Open WTA 500, where she is the No. 6 seed.
\nFor a few moments, the American was just another Gen Z lanyard-wearer, an anonymous livestreaming enthusiast (\u201ca watcher, not a streamer,\u201d in her words), only she just so happens to be the No. 8 ranked professional tennis player in the world. But Gauff insists her newfound ability to occasionally let go of the everyday pressures of her livelihood \u2014 something she says she discovered during her run to her maiden major final this spring in Paris \u2014 is paying dividends on the court.
\n\u201cI was surrounding my life with everything based on tennis,\u201d said Gauff, who is in both the singles and doubles draws this week. \u201cI thought I had to focus my life solely on this, but I have other interests and it\u2019s okay to embrace that.\u201d
\nIn a rain-interrupted opener that played out over two days at Barnes Tennis Center in Point Loma, Gauff flashed her form against another gifted 18-year-old American, 294th-ranked Robin Montgomery, who hails from the same College Park, Md., facility that produced the likes of ATP Tour counterparts Frances Tiafoe and Denis Kudla.
\nMontgomery had notched the first two Top-50 wins of her young career in the qualifying rounds, defeating No. 25 Shuai Zhang and No. 42 Bernarda Pera. But an upset of Gauff proved too ambitious an ask: Despite some stellar play, Montgomery fell, 6-3, 6-3, in one hour and 23 minutes.
\nGauff said she just blocked out Mother Nature\u2019s delays and concentrated on the tennis.
\n\u201cYou just go with it. You can\u2019t control the weather,\u201d said Gauff, who saved four of the five break points she faced. \u201cIt definitely messes up your routine a little bit, but at the same time, I approached the match today as if the score was 0-0. I think that\u2019s the best way to approach it because it\u2019s a new day and a new opportunity.\u201d
\nIn the wake of Serena Williams\u2019 retirement from the sport, and with 42-year-old Venus Williams likely soon to follow, the significance of Wednesday\u2019s matchup wasn\u2019t lost in the moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Serena and Venus saw this today, two 18-year-olds, both African Americans, playing at the WTA 500 level, I think they would be proud,\u201d said Gauff. \u201cBoth of us are products of their legacy. I\u2019m grateful that I had those examples to follow. I hope that maybe I can be an example myself.\u201d
\nGauff will next face 2019 US Open titlist Bianca Andreescu of Canada in Round 2. It will be their first meeting.
\nTop-ranked American Jessica Pegula overcame a slow start against Rancho Santa Fe resident CoCo Vandeweghe to prevail, 6-3, 6-1. The fourth seed avenged a third-round loss to the former No. 9 and two-time Grand Slam semifinalist earlier this year on the green clay of Charleston.
\n\u201cWhen she\u2019s on with her serves and her returns, it\u2019s really tough,\u201d said Pegula, who has all but nailed down a spot at the year-end WTA Finals in Forth Worth. \u201cMy goal was just to try and attack and put pressure on her serve when I got the chance. I knew I had to serve smart and be ready for a big return. She\u2019s got so much easy power.\u201d
\nAmerican Danielle Collins (above) is into her third quarterfinal of 2022 thanks to a 6-2, 6-4 dispatch of Italy\u2019s Martina Trevisan. The world No. 19, who earlier this year reached her maiden major final at the Australian Open, looked all but unchallenged early on before Trevisan found some rhythm and made it a contest.
\n\u201cShe\u2019s never going to give up,\u201d said Collins, who converted seven of 10 break points in the one-hour, 27-minute victory.\u00a0 \u201cAt 5-0 in the first set, I knew that she would probably end up doing something a little bit different, trying to make some adjustments to her game. She certainly made those adjustments and tried to push me back a little more.\u00a0 But, ultimately, the competitiveness and the fiery personality I have inside kind of pushed me to the finish line.\u201d
\nFor only the second time in eight career head-to-heads, Croat qualifier Donna Vekic got the best of former No. 1 Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic, advancing to the quarterfinals with a 6-3, 6-2 victory. It marked a second straight high-profile upset for Vekic, who upended fifth seed Maria Sakkari of Greece in the first round.
\n\u201cIt was just believing in myself, that I could beat her today because I lost to her six times in a row, three times last year. The last one was really painful,\u201d said the 77th-ranked Vekic, referring to a tight, 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (2) second-round loss in Montreal in 2021. \u201cShe\u2019s a very tough opponent for me, but I really went after my shots today and it paid off.\u201d<\/p>\n
WORLD NO. 1 SWIATEK SWINGS INTO ACTION ON THURSDAY<\/strong> Schedule\u00a0\u2014 Thursday, Oct. 13<\/strong> HOLOGIC COURT 2 starts at 1 p.m.<\/strong> Coco Gauff says there was a time when she never would have considered attending an extracurricular event like TwitchCon before a tournament. But that\u2019s exactly what she did this week in her lead-up to the inaugural San Diego Open WTA 500, where she is the No. 6 seed. For a few moments, the American was […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1501,"featured_media":316036,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11553","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"Coco Gauff says there was a time when she never would have considered attending an extracurricular event like TwitchCon before a tournament. But that\u2019s exactly what she did this week in her lead-up to the inaugural San Diego Open WTA 500, where she is the No. 6 seed.","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"3","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"1","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"1","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":""},"jnews_social_meta":{"fb_title":"","fb_description":"","fb_image":"","twitter_title":"","twitter_description":"","twitter_image":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[11553],"tags":[13715,14075,14121,14119,12546,14117],"class_list":["post-316035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-barnes-tennis-center","tag-coco-gauff","tag-danielle-collins","tag-iga-swiatek","tag-point-loma","tag-san-diego-open-wta-500"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1501"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nYou might think that given her tour-leading 57 wins and seven singles titles (Doha, Indian Wells, Miami, Stuttgart, Rome, Roland Garros, US Open), the world\u2019s top-ranked woman might be running on fumes at this stage of the season. But the three-time major champion Iga Swiatek, who in a matter of weeks has globetrotted from Flushing Meadows to Ostrava, Czech Republic to the Southern California coastline, says she has the energy to spare.
\n\u201cHonestly, I feel great. That\u2019s weird because I thought after so many matches I was going to feel a lack of motivation,\u201d said the Pole, who\u2019ll make her San Diego Open debut on Thursday against lucky loser Qinwen Zheng of China (11:30 a.m.). \u201cI thought that when you\u2019re winning so much, you\u2019re not going to have other goals to reach, but, honestly, it\u2019s the opposite because I feel like I\u2019m more fresh. Winning keeps me really positive. I don\u2019t waste my energy and time on coming back to a positive mindset.\u201d
\nThe Swiatek-Zheng clash presents a rematch of their Round of 16 encounters this spring at Roland Garros, which saw the then-19-year-old Zheng push the eventual titlist to three sets, falling 6-7 (5), 6-0, 6-2.
\nSeveral Americans will join the action on Thursday, including Coco Gauff vs. Bianca Andreescu, Madison Keys vs. Daria Kasatkina, Sloane Stephens vs. Aryna Sabalenka, and Louisa Chirico vs Paula Badosa.<\/p>\n
\nSTADIUM COURT starts at 11:30 a.m.<\/strong>
\n[1] I. Swiatek (POL) vs [LL] Q. Zheng (CHN)
\nB. Andreescu (CAN) vs [6] C. Gauff (USA)
\nM. Keys (USA) vs [8] D. Kasatkina
\nNB 5:30 PM [WC] S. Stephens (USA) vs [3] A. Sabalenka
\n[Q] L. Chirico (USA) vs [2] P. Badosa (ESP)<\/p>\n
\nH. Chan (TPE) \/ L. Hradecka (CZE) vs [2] G. Dabrowski (CAN) \/ G. Olmos (MEX)
\nNB 3 p.m. [1] C. Gauff (USA) \/ J. Pegula (USA) vs S. Kenin (USA) \/ L. Samsonova<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"