The American teenager, playing her first Grand Slam quarterfinal, was frustrated and defeated by the unseeded Barbora Krejcikova.
It was the first Grand Slam singles quarterfinal for Coco Gauff and Barbora Krejcikova and, frankly, you could tell. There were tight groundstrokes into the net, errant service tosses and multiple double faults, reversals of momentum and fortune. To sum up, there was tension in the sunlight as fans — remember those? — shouted “Allez Coco!” from high in the stands in the Philippe Chatrier stadium. Gauff, the American 17-year-old, received the majority of the support, but she could not quite manage to give the Roland Garros public what it desired. After failing to convert five set points in the opening set, she went on to lose to the unseeded Krejcikova,7-6 (6),6-3. Gauff, the last American left in singles, finished with 25 winners,41 unforced errors and one mangled racket after destroying it in anger with three swift blows to the red clay after double-faulting to fall behind by 4-0 in the final set. “I’m obviously disappointed that I wasn’t able to close out the first set,” Gauff said. “To be honest, it’s in the past, it already happened. After the match, Enzo, my hitting partner, told me this match will probably make me a champion in the future. I really do believe that.” Gauff was brilliant at times and bamboozled at others. She lost 15 straight points at one stage in the second set. That was not entirely her doing. Krejcikova, a former French Open doubles champion, has begun to come into her own as a singles player and has a wide array of shots and tactical options, as well as baseline power when she chooses to summon it.
