London, July 3 (IANS) Second seed and the 2023 U.S Open winner, Coco Gauff advanced into the women’s singles third round of the Wimbledon 2024 Championships, with a crushing 6-2, 6-1 victory over Romanian qualifier Anca Todoni here on Wednesday. The 20-year-old American dropped just three games as she became the first woman to the third round.
Gauff needed just 1 hour and 6 minutes to defeat Todoni, who beat Olga Danilovic in the first round after qualifying for her Grand Slam debut, under the roof on No.1 Court, as rain delayed the start of play on the outside courts by nearly two hours.
Todoni, the rookie, was competitive with the US Open champion in the first four games of the match. But she failed to convert the only two breakpoints she had in the match, in the fourth game of the second set, which proved costly for the Romanian. In all, Gauff broke serve five times in nine chances, and her serve was never otherwise under threat.
Gauff was born five months before Todoni in 2003 but entered the match as the much more experienced player. The World No.141 was contesting her first career Grand Slam tournament, and second WTA tour-level main draw after debuting in February at Cluj-Napoca.
Ranked No.592 at this time last year, Todoni entered Wimbledon ranked a near career-best No.141, was 4-1 against Top 100 players in 2024 entering her match against Gauff, and also beat a player ranked ahead of her, No.116 Olga Danilovic, in the opening round.
But Gauff represented a step up in quality and experience that the Romanian had trouble matching. She hit 23 unforced errors in defeat to just seven winners.
The American, meanwhile, hit 13 winners to 16 unforced and won 85% of her first serve points — though she only landed 43% of them.
Since losing in the first round of Wimbledon 12 months ago, Gauff is now 19-2 at Grand Slam tournaments. And largely, she’s cruised in those victories — particularly in the first week. Gauff did not lose a set in either the Australian Open or French Open in her first four matches and has only lost six games through two rounds at Wimbledon.
But the grass-court Grand Slam is the only event at which Gauff hasn’t made the quarterfinals, having lost in the Round of 16 in both 2019 and 2021.
–IANS
bsk/
