Coco Gauff solves Ekaterina Alexandrova, surges into Berlin quarterfinals

Coco Gauff made a winning start to her grass-court season against an especially tough opponent, navigating a first-set tiebreaker before ultimately dispatching Ekaterina Alexandrova, 7-6 (6), 6-2 at the ecotrans Ladies Open.

The newly-minted world No. 2 was playing her first tournament since reaching the semifinals at Roland Garros, and saved three set points against the always dangerous Alexandrova to win a rematch of their 2023 Berlin clash in 80 minutes flat on Steffi Graff Stadion.

"When you're down in tiebreakers, I tell myself just to get one, and one point turns into two," Gauff said. "I knew if I could get it back on serve, I could get the advantage. I was just hoping she wouldn't ace me and I could get a ball in the court!"

Relatively speaking, grass has been Gauff’s least successful surface, but that only speaks to her impressive results on hard courts and clay, having won the 2023 US Open and reached the 2022 Roland Garros final. It was famously her first-round exit from Wimbledon that prompted her to revamp her coaching team and hire Brad Gilbert, who led her to her first Grand Slam victory in Flushing Meadows last summer.

Armed with a big serve and all-court game, Gauff could yet prove herself on grass, but first she had to get past Alexandrova, who has won two of her four titles on the notoriously quick surface. The 29-year-old is in the midst of a career-best season, peaking at No. 15 in the rankings back in April after defeating world No. 1 Iga Swiatek en route to the Miami Open semifinals.

Not only that, she beat Gauff at this very tournament, 6-4, 6-0, exactly 12 months ago.

"I don't remember!" she exclaimed when reminded of the result. "Obviously, I wasn't thinking about it, but I'm a different player from last year. She's a great player, especially on grass. She's won a couple titles on grass so I knew today was going to be tough."

Evenly matched in the first set, Gauff and Alexandrova exchanged breaks and served their way to a tiebreaker. Though Alexandrova enjoyed the quicker start in the Sudden Death, it was Gauff who proved stronger in the clutch, reeling off five straight points to take the set out from under her unseeded opposition.

"We were both serving well. I'll be curious to see how many combined aces we had," she said on court. "I think in the first set, we were both just trying to get the return back when we could. In the second, I took some chances on some second serves, I got a few more looks so I was trying to be aggressive."

Gauff, who ended the match with seven aces to Alexandrova's four, carried that momentum into the second set, breaking twice to put herself a game away from the last eight. With the match on her racquet, she served out the contest at love, sweeping a forehand into the open court to secure victory after just over an hour on court.

Awaiting her in the quarterfinals will be the winner of another intriguing round-of-16 clash between Linda Noskova and No. 8 seed Ons Jabeur, who has reached the last two Wimbledon finals.