The world number 3 Coco Gauff crashed in the second round of the WTA 1000 tournament in Dubai on Tuesday when she was beaten 6-4, 7-5 by her American compatriot McCartney Kessler. N ° 53 of the world, which beat the Doha Amanda Anisimova champion in the first round, broke the service of Gauff three times and saved five of the six break points that she faced. The only time she slipped came when she tried to serve the match for the first time at 5-4 in the second set.
This is the first time that Kessler, 25, has beat a top 10 player, although she won the first two titles in his career in the last six months – in Cleveland in August 2024 and then in Hobart in early January.
It takes place in the third round of a WTA 1000 for the first time in her career, and will face the seeded n ° 14 Karolina Muchova who beat the winner of US Open Emma Raducanu 7-6 (8/6), 6-4.
Gauff took a good start to the year by winning all of his games for the United States as it won the United Cup and reaching the quarter-finals of Australian Open.
However, she lost in the second round of the Doha WTA 1000 last Tuesday, also in two sets, for Ukrainian Marta Kostyuk and has now fallen to n ° 53 in the world.
There were no such problems for the first two seeds.
Aryna Sabalenka, world n ° 1, won his first victory since the Australian semi-finals opened with a 6-3, 6-4 victory against the Veronika Kudermetova qualification.
“It’s always like a roller coaster of a game with (Kudermetova),” said Sabalenka.
“This is why I am satisfied with the way I stayed focused today. No matter how she played, I was there to fight, trying to stay focused on myself and my game.”
IGA Swiatek crushed Victoria Azarenka 6-0, 6-2.
Jasmine Paolini launched his defense of the title with a victory although the rain made him wait.
The Italian reached the match point before the rain forced players out of the field. More than four hours later, the world No. 4 returned to win the final point, beating the German qualification Eva Lys 6-2, 7-5.
(This story has not been published by NDTV staff and is automatically generated from a unionized flow.)
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