2023 US Open champion Coco Gauff was thwarted in her title defence on Sunday by her American compatriot Emma Navarro, who moves into the quarter-finals where she will meet Paula Badosa, a 4th-round winner over Wang Yafan.
Emma NavarroGauff was hard pressed by Navarro in the second day session match on Arthur Ashe Stadium, and unravelled in a blizzard of mistakes, many contributed by her ailing serve.
The World No 3 slumped to a 6-3 4-6 6-3 defeat on the back of 19 double-faults and 60 unforced errors, leaving Serena Williams as the last woman to successfully defend the US Open title, in 2014.
Navarro had defeated Gauff at Wimbledon in July, and was dominant again on Sunday from the outset.
“I lost in the first round the last two years, and now to be making the quarter-finals is pretty insane,” said Navarro, who will face Spain’s Badosa for a place in the semi-finals. “This is the city I was born in, and it feels so special to play here.”
The 23-year-old broke for 4-2 in the first set, and sealed the opener in the 9th game in which one rally stretched to 27 shots.
Gauff recovered from a break down in the second to level the match, but it was a brief respite as she served up 3 more double-faults to slip a crucial break down again in the decider.
“I gave it my all,” said Gauff. “Obviously there were things execution-wise, where I was, like, I wish I could serve better. I think if I did that, it would have been a different story.”
Gauff added that she had no regrets about her US Open, at least emotionally.
She began the year by winning a title in January and made the semi-finals at both the Australian and French opens.
She also advanced to the semi-finals at Indian Wells, and in Rome in the spring, but then lost steam over the summer, and had a 6-8 record this season against players in the Top 20 coming into Sunday’s match.
“It’s not the summer that I want,” Gauff said. “I feel, like, there’s, like, 70 other players in the draw that would love to have the summer that I had, even though it’s [the worst I’ve probably done] during this time of the year.
“So many people want to be in the fourth round. So many people want to make the Olympics. So many people want to be flag bearer. It’s perspective. Obviously, because I’m wanting to reach a different level, it is disappointing, but I’m not going to beat myself up and be, like, this was so bad.”
23-year old Navarro is closing out a break-through Grand Slam season in which she made the 3rd round in Australia, the 4th round at the French Open, and the quarter-finals at Wimbledon.
Now the 13th seed is a first-time US Open quarter-finalist, and looking to make it into the Last 4, if she can get past 26th-seeded Badosa from Spain on Tuesday.
“Just the mental side of it,” Navarro said about her development. “I believe that I can play tennis with the best players in the world. I deserve to be on this stage, and, yeah, I belong in these rounds of Grand Slams, and, yeah, I can make deep runs.”
Steely-eyed and calm, Navarro is a fluid mover who matched Gauff’s athleticism on Sunday, and plays with a go-for-broke confidence that pairs nicely with her well-rounded game, although she prefers to attack from the baseline.
Born in New York and raised in South Carolina, the lithe 5-foot-7 Navarro may not be the most physically imposing player on tour, but she won the 2021 NCAA singles title for Virginia, and makes opponents pay for losing their nerve.
“I’ve been out on big courts before, where I just felt totally overwhelmed, and almost, like, it’s an out-of-body experience, but I didn’t feel like that today,” she said. “I felt comfortable from the time I stepped out on to the court.”
Coco Gauff’s 19 double-faults and 60 errors contributed to her downfall against Emma Navarro in the 4th-round of the US Open
Both women walked on court wearing matching Olympic rings charm necklaces to commemorate their time at the Paris Games, but both looked tight at the outset, and it was Navarro, playing for her very first time on Ashe, who settled in first as Gauff double-faulted twice in a row to hand her a 4-2 lead.
At 2-5, Gauff blasted a 119 mph serve out wide to save a set point, which she punctuated with a loud scream, trying to gather some steam.
Navarro immediately quelled any change of momentum by hitting a deep, heavy forehand to hold to love and take the opening set, 6-3.
In the second, things stayed pretty even until 3-3, when, with Gauff serving, Navarro crunched an inside-out backhand winner, and then ran down a drop-shot, rolling a forehand into the open court to move 4-3 ahead.
Gauff fought hard, and earned 3 break points in the next game, winning a long, blistering groundstroke rally and snatching her first break of serve on a nervous double-fault coughed up by Navarro, before the No 3 seed held to take a 5-4 lead, and begged the crowd to get loud, which they did, when a forehand flew deep off Navarro’s racket, taking the match into a decider.
“It was tough losing the second set,” Navarro said. “I was up 30-love at 4-3, and had a bit of a lull there. I had to regroup after the second.”
In the third set, Navarro reset, again striking deep, penetrating groundstrokes, and after Gauff double-faulted for the 12th time, she held an early 2-1 advantage.
The 23-year-old kept up the pressure, calmly striking the ball and capitalising on Gauff’s growing number of errors for a 4-2 lead.
Gauff admitted to having trouble with her ball toss earlier in the tournament, and she hung her head or covered her mouth in disbelief as the double-faults mounted.
Before Gauff readied to serve at 3-5 down, a group of children holding oversized tennis balls were somehow allowed to run down into the lower bowl seats, preparing to ask for the winner’s autograph, and they were in her line of sight.
She paused to wait as they were herded back, Gauff’s body language spelled the end as she double-faulted 3 more times, and served a 96-mph second serve on the final point, which Navarro blasted for a winner to move into her first US Open quarter-final.
Navarro, who has described herself as naturally relaxed, had almost half as many unforced errors on the afternoon as Gauff, with the now former champion finishing with 4 times more errors than she hit winners, 60 to just 14.
It was probably Navarro’s best match of the year, and brings widespread recognition to a talented player who has reached a career-high ranking of No 12 in the world when, this time last year, she was listed at 57.
“I think I’m on the radar,” Navarro told reporters. “In my own head I’ll probably always be under the radar just because I don’t give social media and that kind of stuff too much attention.
“I thought being on the radar would be more of a scary thing than it actually is. Now that I think I’m here, it’s not so bad.”
Delighted Paula Badosa got past a tricky Wang Yafan to reach her first Grand Slam quarter-final where she will take on Emma Navarro
Earlier, Badosa, also born in New York, reached her first US Open quarter-final with a 6-1 6-2 win over China’s Wang Yafan.
Despite the one-sided scoreline, the first 3 games in the opening match on Louis Armstrong Stadium on Sunday took 22 minutes to complete, while Badosa saved all 8 break points she faced.
“It was so humid, I thought I was going to die,” said the 26-year-old about the humidity, which hit 85 percent…
