MELBOURNE, Australia — Coco Gauff avoided the early Day 4 upsets at the Australian Open when she advanced to the third round with a 7-6 (6), 6-2 win over fellow American player Caroline Dolehide.
While sixth-seeded Ons Jabeur of Tunisia and former top-ranked Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark were eliminated by two young Russian players, Gauff battled through a tough first set before pulling away in the second.
Dolehide served for the opening set at 6-5 before US Open champion Gauff took control in the tiebreaker.
“It was really hard,” Gauff said. “If you give her something short, she’s going to punish you for it. So, if I could go back and do something, I’d change that.”
Gauff will next play another American, Alycia Parks, who reached the third round of a Grand Slam singles tournament for the first time with a 7-5, 6-4 win over 32nd-ranked Leylah Fernandez of Canada.
Jabeur, the runner-up at Wimbledon in each of the past two years, made 24 unforced errors as she was beaten 6-0, 6-2 by 16-year-old Mirra Andreeva in 54 minutes.
“I was really nervous before the match because I’m really inspired by Ons and the way she plays,” said Andreeva, who reached the third round at the French Open last year in her Grand Slam debut and the fourth round at Wimbledon before rounding off the majors with a second-round exit at the US Open. “Before I started on the WTA Tour, I always watched her matches and was always so inspired. Now, I had the chance to play against her.”
It is the second successive year that Jabeur has lost in the second round in Melbourne.
In her only previous match on Rod Laver Arena, Andreeva left the court in tears after a loss to her friend Alina Korneeva in the junior final last year.
“I was just super upset. I didn’t think about anything else,” she said. “For maybe a week I was just replaying the match in my head, and I was thinking, ‘I should have changed this, should have changed that, I should have changed this.'”
Then the reality of it struck her: It’s a game of on-court skill, but also of mental resilience.
“It’s not the most painful loss of my life,” she said. “After that, I just moved on.”
Her opening 7-5, 6-2 win over Bernarda Pera was her first in the main draw in Australia, making her the youngest player since Gauff to win matches at all four majors.
Her win over Jabeur was her first over a player ranked in the top 10, another career milestone.
Wozniacki, the winner at Melbourne Park in 2018, was beaten 1-6, 6-4, 6-1 by 20-year-old Maria Timofeeva, who is making her main draw Grand Slam singles debut this year.
Wozniacki, who had two children before returning to the WTA Tour last year after 3½ years away, led by a set and 2-0 before Timofeeva turned the match around with some devastating hitting, including 40 winners.
“I’m really a bit speechless now,” Timofeeva said. “It was an honor to play here against Caroline today. I was going into the match without any expectations. I enjoyed every second of it.”
Wozniacki said the match “slid out of my hands … it’s definitely disappointing,”
Jabeur and Wozniacki played their matches under the roof, at Rod Laver Arena and John Cain Arena, respectively, with rain causing the start of matches on the outside courts to be delayed for three hours.
In other women’s matches, ninth-seeded Barbora Krejcikova of Czechia secured a straight-sets win, firing off 30 winners and eight aces to eased past Germany’s Tamara Korpatsch 6-2, 6-2.
No. 10-seeded Beatriz Haddad Maia beat Korneeva 6-1, 6-2, while Amanda Anisimova continued her comeback from a seven-month mental health break with a 6-2, 6-3 win over Nadia Podoroska.
Defending women’s champion Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus headlines the night matches later Wednesday, three days after wrapping up the first-ever first Sunday at Melbourne Park.
Sabalenka, who won her first Grand Slam singles title here 12 months ago, faces Czechia’s Brenda Fruhvirtova.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
