Coco Gauff loves No. 1 Court at Wimbledon. It’s where she beat Venus Williams in 2019, when Gauff was competing at the prestigious grass-court tournament for the first time in her career at the age of 15.
The American beat Anca Todoni 6-2, 6-1 on Wednesday to reach the third round of the tournament at the All England Club.
“This is where I started my Wimbledon journey. Court One will always be special to me,” the now 20-year-old said in an interview after her match.
The victory also allows Gauff, the second seed, to put a little more balm on her surprise elimination in the first round last year on the London pitch.
“I’m learning new things every day,” the US Open champion said of her three-set loss to compatriot Sofia Kenin.
“I realized that, yeah, I’m passionate, but you don’t have to take everything so seriously and sometimes you can feel like the whole world is putting pressure on you because of expectations,” she explained. “At the end of the day, it’s just a game. It’s a sport.”
Romanian Todoni, 19, was playing in her first career Grand Slam tournament.
“I think I could have played better at times,” Gauff admitted.
Five years ago, Gauff defeated Williams — a five-time Wimbledon champion — 6-4, 6-4 in the first round en route to the round of 16 at Wimbledon.
In other matches, four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka fell 6-4, 6-1 in the second round to 19th seed Emma Navarro.
11th seed Danielle Collins completed her first-round match by defeating Clara Tauson 6-3, 7-6 (4). It had been interrupted the previous day at 4-4 in the second set.
For her part, the 20th seed Beatriz Haddad Maia continued her journey in the third round by ousting Magdalena Frech 7-5, 6-3.
On the men’s side of the draw, defending champion Carlos Alcaraz trailed 6-5 in the first set before staging a comeback to defeat Alexsander Vukic 7-6 (5), 6-2, 6-2. He thus set the stage for a third-round duel against 29th seed Frances Tiafoe, who defeated Borna Coric 7-6 (5), 6-1, 6-3.
When it was pointed out that Tiafoe was next in line, the 21-year-old Spaniard said with a smile that “I’m the one who’s going to be in his line.”
“We had a great match at the US Open,” the third seed recalled of their semifinal encounter that Alcaraz won at Flushing Meadows in 2022.
The world’s first racket, Jannik Sinner, defeated his Italian compatriot Matteo Berrettini 7-6 (3), 7-6 (4), 2-6, 7-6 (4).
“I knew I had to step up my game today,” Sinner said. “He’s a grass-court specialist. I’m happy with how I handled it.”
The 16th seed Ugo Humbert eliminated Botic van de Zandschulp 7-6 (9), 6-1 and 6-3.
Ups and downs for Canada
The day was divided into two parts for the representatives of the maple leaf on Wednesday at the Wimbledon tournament.
While Bianca Andreescu easily defeated Czech Linda Noskova 6-3, 7-6 (5) in the second round on court no . 18, it was a completely different story for her compatriot Félix Auger-Aliassime.
Andreescu, ranked 176th in the world, took the measure of her rival, the 26th seed , after one hour and 33 minutes.
In the third round, she will face the finalist of the French Open, the Italian Jasmine Paolini, who defeated the Belgian Greet Minnen 7-6 (5), 6-2.
The Ontarian wasn’t as incisive on serve as she would have liked; she won only 74% of her points with her first serve. In addition, she was limited to just one ace, in addition to committing two double faults.
Andreescu, the 2019 US Open champion, was able to convert just one of her six break points. She was tenacious on her return serve, however, stopping Noskova from breaking her serve in five opportunities.
The representative of the maple leaf also finished the match with a total of 28 winners, and 11 unforced errors. Noskova, more messy, recorded 21 winners, but she committed 26 unforced errors.
Auger-Aliassime, on the other hand, was defeated by the Australian Thanasi Kokkikanis 4-6, 5-7, 7-6 (9), 6-4 and 6-4 at the end of a marathon of four hours and 38 minutes of play, in a match that was interrupted several times by rain and which lasted two days.
This result is heartbreaking for the Quebecer, 17th seed in the tournament, who had four match points the day before play was interrupted. If he had managed to convert one of them, then he would have sealed the outcome of this match in three consecutive sets.
But it didn’t come to fruition. Kokkikanis, who is ranked 93rd in the world, will now face Frenchman Lucas Pouille in the second round.
Auger-Aliassime, who reached the quarter-finals at Wimbledon in 2021, was thus ejected from the All England Club in the first round for the third consecutive year.
The second-round match between Ontario’s Denis Shapovalov and Germany’s Daniel Altmaier, originally scheduled for Wednesday afternoon, has instead been postponed to Thursday morning.
In the women’s doubles, the tournament’s second seeds, Ontario’s Gabriela Dabrowski and New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe, easily beat Russians Anastasia Potapova and Mirra Andreeva 6-2, 7-5 in the first round.
Quebecer Leylah Annie Fernandez and her Japanese playing partner Ena Shibahara beat Chinese players Jiang Xinyu and Guo Hanyu in three sets of 2-6, 7-6 (4), 6-3.
