Gauff survives 2nd set to advance at French Open

PARIS -- Coco Gauff got disconnected to a terrific commencement successful the French Open's 3rd circular Saturday, taking 12 of the archetypal 15 points for a 3-0 pb aft conscionable 10 minutes. The remainder of the opening acceptable went smoothly, too.

Things got overmuch tougher from there, and the 2023 US Open champion was simply 2 points from dropping the 2nd set, earlier getting backmost successful the close absorption and defeating Marie Bouzkova 6-1, 7-6 (3) to scope Week 2 astatine Roland-Garros for the 5th consecutive year.

Gauff, a 21-year-old from Florida, was the runner-up successful Paris successful 2022 and is seeded No. 2 astatine the clay-court Grand Slam tourney this year.

Next up for her volition beryllium a matchup connected Monday against No. 20 Ekaterina Alexandrova, with the victor moving into the quarterfinals.

After needing conscionable a half-hour to assertion the archetypal acceptable Saturday, Gauff coiled up successful a 75-minute conflict successful the second.

That acceptable included 8 breaks of service successful a enactment arsenic the sounds of popping fireworks drifted implicit to Court Philippe-Chatrier from the adjacent shot stadium belonging to Paris Saint-Germain, whose fans were gathering to be a ticker enactment up of the Champions League last against Italy's Inter Milan successful Munich, Germany, aboriginal Saturday night.

The cardinal successful the 2nd was erstwhile Gauff trailed 5-3, 30-love with Bouzkova serving. A full of 4 times, Bouzkova needed to drawstring unneurotic 2 consecutive points to unit a 3rd set.

But Gauff wouldn't let it, often stretching points with her terrific tribunal sum until she could find abstraction to deed a winner. On 1 peculiarly memorable exchange, Gauff sprinted to hardly scope a driblet shot, scrambled into presumption to artifact backmost a volley, past leaped for an overhead smash.

By the end, Gauff had much than doubly arsenic galore winners arsenic Bouzkova successful the 2nd set, 22 to 11, and besides helped herself by winning the constituent connected 11 of her 14 trips to the net.

Gauff is 1 of 5 American women successful the 4th round. The others are No. 3 Jessica Pegula, No. 7 Madison Keys, No. 16 Amanda Anisimova and unseeded Hailey Baptiste.

There were 3 US men inactive successful the bracket heading into Sunday.

Keys, who won the Australian Open successful January, saved 3 lucifer points portion down 5-4 successful the last acceptable and came backmost to bushed 2020 Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin 4-6, 6-3, 7-5. Keys present plays the 70th-ranked Baptiste.

Anisimova meets No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka for a spot successful the quarterfinals, and Pegula -- past year's US Open runner-up -- faces French wild-card introduction Lois Boisson.