Naomi Osaka Knocks Coco Gauff Out of the U.S. Open

Naomi Osaka, the world’s No. 1 player, put an end to the latest Grand Slam run by the 15-year-old American Coco Gauff, winning, 6-3, 6-0, in the third round of the United States Open on Saturday.

Osaka’s victory in Arthur Ashe Stadium was no surprise and certainly no discredit to Gauff, who has captured plenty of imaginations and attention during her remarkable summer of tennis.

Though Gauff has overcome several of her elders, she is 0-2 against top-10 opposition, having lost to Simona Halep in the fourth round of Wimbledon as well as to Osaka on Saturday.

Osaka, the reigning U.S. Open champion, who defeated Serena Williams in last year’s final, has struggled to hit the same high notes since a surprising split with her coach Sascha Bajin after she won the Australian Open in January.

But with a new coach, Jermaine Jenkins, in her corner, Osaka, 21, is back in the fourth round at Flushing Meadows.

Immediately after the match, Osaka spoke to Gauff and asked her to join in the post-match interview. Gauff said she could not because she was about to burst into tears. Osaka told Gauff that it was better to show the fans how she felt than to go into the showers and cry alone. Gauff agreed to participate in the interview, and thanked Osaka for being such a good sport.

There was an atmosphere of anticipation and buzz for the matchup, one tennis fans expect to see many times during the next several years.

The audience favored the American Gauff, but Osaka controlled most of the points in the opening set and could have won faster if not for a few mistakes. Some of her shotmaking was breathtaking, especially some of the acute angles she converted for winners. She had 15 winners in the first set.

She opened with a powerful statement, driving her way to the first three games with relative efficiency. She sealed the first game with an ace and then broke Gauff in the second game when Gauff double-faulted at 30-40.

Osaka held her serve to take a 3-0 lead and seemed as if she might cruise through the set, but momentum shifted swiftly in the next game. Gauff, with the fans solidly behind her, won the game with a blistering 119 m.p.h. serve up the middle, her fastest recorded serve ever.

Then Osaka appeared to show nerves in the next game, committing some unforced errors with wild misses on ground strokes. Finally, she hit a backhand into the net that sealed the service break for Gauff, who was back in the set.

It was the first of four consecutive service breaks. With Gauff serving at 2-3, Osaka broke her right back.

First, she moved Gauff wide and then struck a brilliant backhand winner, and pumped her arms to punctuate the point. Then she hit another backhand at a fierce angle as Gauff fell behind by 15-40. Gauff hit an approach winner, but at 30-40, Osaka hit a wicked return of serve and Gauff’s backhand reply went long.

But at 4-2, 30-40, Osaka hit a forehand into the net tape, and the ball bounced wide, giving Gauff another break.

Osaka broke back and then held her serve after falling behind by 0-30. But then she hit a service winner out wide. At 15-30, Gauff hit a forehand into the net for an unforced error, and yelled out in frustration, the first time she had done that in the set. Osaka followed that up with a yell of her own, ripping a backhand winner down the line and shouting, “Come on,” for emphasis.

To close out the set, she used a forehand slice to disrupt Gauff’s rhythm. Gauff’s return went into the net and the players returned to their chairs after a 40-minute set.

On Monday, Osaka will face a tough challenge in the 13th seed, Belinda Bencic. A former prodigy herself, Bencic, 22, broke into the top 10 as a teenager before wrist surgery in 2017 stopped her progress.

But Bencic is back in earnest now. One of the game’s best counterpunchers, she is at her most dangerous on hardcourts. She advanced to the fourth round by walkover on Saturday after her opponent, Anett Kontaveit, withdrew before the match because of a viral illness.