Coco Gauff narrowly survived Moyuka Uchijima to reach the third round of the BNP Paribas Open 6-4 3-6 7-6(4). In her words, she was “just happy to get through it” in the end. The American, who has had a modest start to the season with first-round defeats in Qatar and Dubai, was not thrilled with her performance.
The third seed racked up 21 double faults during the match but remained optimistic in her post-match comments: “Off the ground I felt pretty good, honestly. I think if I just double-faulted less it could have probably been a straight-set match. I felt off the ground like I was dictating more of the rallies.”
Entering the press conference at Indian Wells, the 20-year-old believed she would be facing the winner of Belinda Bencic vs. Amanda Anisimova. However, she was caught off guard when Women’s Tennis Blog informed her that her next opponent would be Maria Sakkari. The Greek player had defeated her 6-4 6(5)-7 6-2 in their most recent encounter—the 2024 BNP Paribas Open semifinal.
Reflecting on last year’s encounter, the 2023 US Open champion mainly remembered the disruptive weather: “That was such a long kind of day. It was rainy and we stopped and started so many times.” Despite the challenging conditions, her opponent’s experience shone through:…
