US Open: Coco Gauff, Mirra Andreeva prevail in women’s singles opener

New York: The No. 4 seed Coco Gauff played excellent tennis to take down a resilient Zeynep Sonmez, 6-3, 6-4, and advanced to the second round of the US Open.

The 22-year-old American, competing in her eighth US Open main draw, entered this year’s Open as one of the favorites, courtesy of a recent run of fine form that included semifinal showings at Wimbledon and Toronto and the title in Cincinnati.

Gauff posted two aces and a service winner in her first service game, dominated on serve in her next two service games, broke Sonmez for a 4-2 lead and held strong to claim the opening set in a tidy 32 minutes.

Sonmez showed her mettle and upped her game in the second set, charging the net to change momentum and rallying from down an early break to make it interesting. The world No. 53 forced three break points, but Gauff saved all three, held on the 16th point of the game and promptly broke her opponent to take a 4-3 advantage she would never relinquish.

Earlier, No. 5 seed Mirra Andreeva got her Flushing Meadows campaign off to an emphatic start, defeating world No. 36 Janice Tjen, 6-2, 6-2, to advance to the second round for the fourth straight year.

Meanwhile Alexandra Eala kicked off her 2026 US Open campaign with a dominant win over American qualifier Mary Stoiana, advancing to Round 2 at Flushing Meadows for the second consecutive year.

Eala’s win continues a strong run on the North American hard-court swing, highlighted by her title run in Washington, D.C. She has now won nine of her past 11 matches on hard courts since Wimbledon, where she reached the fourth round of a Grand Slam for the first time in her career. The No. 17 seed, Eala played a shaky first service game, saving two break points in front of a packed crowd at Louis Armstrong Stadium,. Those pressure points seemed to be all that Eala needed to sink her teeth into the match, rolling to a 5-0 lead before closing out the first set 6-1, behind winning 84 percent of her first-service points.

Stoiana generated two breakpoint opportunities in Eala’s first service game of the second set. However, once again she could not convert, allowing Eala to maintain control and kept the pedal to the metal, and a break in the fifth game of the second set proved to be the boost needed to power her through the finish line.Eala bookended the match in the same way she started, winning the final five games in a row. In the clutch moments, she was nearly perfect, saving all six break points against her while converting four of eight break chances on Stoiana’s serve. 

Meanwhile world number three Jessica Pegula produced a finely tuned performance to beat fellow American Sofia Kenin 6-3 6-1 at the competition on Wednesday.(Agencies)

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