MELBOURNE, Australia — Coco Gauff is out of the Australian Open.
On a hot, sun-drenched Rod Laver Arena day that looked tailored to her strengths, and in a matchup when she is the Grand Slam veteran, Gauff lost to Paula Badosa of Spain. Badosa, who returned from a potentially career-ending injury at this year’s Wimbledon, pulled off the biggest Grand Slam win of her career, beating the 20-year-old American 7-5, 6-4.
Gauff fell victim to her once-again shaky forehand, but also to an emboldened Badosa, who followed the aggressive approach that Gauff’s opponents have employed over the past 10 days and four, now five matches.
After three months of watching Gauff going on the attack to win nearly every match and tournament that she played, her rivals have started to realize that they can no longer rely on Gauff’s weaknesses beating herself. They have to attack her before she attacks them.
Badosa said that was her plan after her fourth-round match. That was the easy part; she did the hard part too and executed it. Badosa seized on every shortish ball — and plenty that were not so short — and hoped that enough of them would hit their targets. Gauff tried to meet Badosa’s power with her own and they played like two prizefighters, with no interest in dancing around each other. They just wanted to swing out.
Gauff looked like she was going to put Badosa on the ropes midway through the first set, but she never earned a break point and by the end of the set the once-weak forehand, that had been mostly stable the last few months after she adjusted her approach, was beginning to wilt under Badosa’s pressure.
Welcome to Coco Gauff 3.0: How she rebuilt her serve and forehand
The match turned with Gauff serving at 5-5 in the first set, as Badosa and Gauff played the best point of the match, with Gauff chasing down Badosa’s attacks and Badosa earning her opening with a nifty half-volley off what looked like a sure passing shot from Gauff. A soft drop volley had the American clapping for her and two more bold forehands on the next point gave her the break before she served out the set.
Gauff, who left the court after the first set, looked like she might make a surge early in the second. After losing her first service game, she broke back and tied the set at two games all, but with the error big still biting her she relinquished her serve again and went down 5-2.
Badosa entered this quarterfinal with scar tissue she has been trying to heal ever since returning to tennis. In the last eight of the 2024 U.S. Open against Emma Navarro, she had a 5-1 lead in the second set having lost the first. She lost six games in a row and said, Rafael-Nadal style, that she had “done a disaster.” Even Navarro said she didn’t believe a third set was coming when she couldn’t afford to lose another game.
“I came in, I wanted to play my best game. I think I did it,” Badosa said on court.
”A year ago I was here with my back and didn’t know if I would have to retire from this sport,” she said.
Badosa had once been the world No. 2, and had won the WTA 1000 tournament at Indian Wells, Calif.. But the back injury, as doctors told her there in 2024 seemed like it might be doo much to overcome.
Through last season she balanced rehabilitation with match play, never knowing how far her back might take her. She made that U.S. Open quarterfinal. She lost it. Another quarterfinal loss at the French Open in 2021, where she fell just short losing 8-6 in a third set, lingered too.
The scar tissue showed in a missed drive volley from which she escaped, and showed again as she tried to serve out the match. Gauff grabbed the game and served at 3-5 down, stealing a point she should have lost when Badosa smacked an overhead right to her racket. She held from 40-30 and put the pressure back on the Spaniard.
This time, Badosa withstood it. She pounded two aces and allowed Gauff to grab just a single point in the final game. When it was over she dropped to her knees, then headed to the net where a disappointed Gauff awaited. The demons from New York had been exorcized.
When it was over, the numbers told the story. Gauff had six double faults and 35 unforced errors on her groundstrokes. Badosa had just two double faults and 20 unforced errors from the ground; she forced 22 errors out of Gauff, compared to 17.
Gauff can take some solace in moving one round further, than she did the last two Grand Slams, But after winning the WTA Tour Finals, she doesn’t play Grand Slams to make quarterfinals. She arrives planning to be alive in the final weekend. She will have to wait for for the French Open in May to have another shot at that. Before then, she will have the chance to prove that her remarkable winning streak of 22-2 between the U.S. Open and this defeat is sustainable progress, rather than another masterful overcoming of a fundamental problem still in need of a complete fix.
(Top photo: Getty Images)
