Coco Gauff begins Rome Open campaign with rampant win over Magdalena Frech

Coco Gauff is through to the third round at the 2024 Rome Open after beginning her campaign in the Italian capital as she does often quickly and rampantly. She eased past Magdalena Frech 6-3, 6-3 on Thursday evening.

Frech saw off Ashlyn Krueger yesterday in a match which was highlighted due to the shouting match between two fans in the crowd. But it wasn’t to be back-to-back Americans defeated for the Pole as Gauff made light work of her this evening.

Lacking the big run as of late, Gauff though could still find her way into World No.2 by the time that the Rome Open ends with Aryna Sabalenka defending big points this time of year and going into the French Open, it could very well be the American challenging Iga Swiatek next at the top. This is despite the so-called Big Three often being touted in the WTA.
She saw off Frech in just over an hour and 25 minutes. It was back-to-back breaks to begin the first set with Gauff staving off a break back to go 2-1 up. She then broke herself to make it 4-1 before breaking again making it 5-1 at one point. But she couldn’t see it out as Frech fought back to break and hold to make it interesting. But Gauff fought through to take the lead.
The second was back and forth to begin, but soon turned into the Gauff show as she broke on the eve of the end of the set to make it 5-2 and sealed it at 5-3 after Frech had initially broke back. She will face either Elina Avanesyan or Jaqueline Cristian in the next round currently in action now. Iga Swiatek also plays this evening with Aryna Sabalenka and Elena Rybakina starting their campaigns tomorrow afternoon.