Six years after a breakthrough for the ages and one month on from winning the French Open, Coco Gauff wilted to a quite staggering defeat on her first appointment at these championships last night.
If we are to contextualise the shock attached to the second seed’s exit, and thus the biggest scalp to fall so far from either draw, then it concerns one fact about her conqueror, Dayana Yastremska. The woman is allergic to grass.
And yet we might assume the same of Gauff, who since reaching the fourth round here as 15-year-old has failed to go better. This was the sort of day to embed a deep-rooted hatred towards the surface.
But that should not detract from Yastremska’s achievement. She was brilliant and brutal in equal measure in this 7-6, 6-1 demolition, with the surprise perhaps not as resounding as it seems on first glance.
Sure, the Ukrainian had never previously made the second round, but having reached the final in Nottingham a fortnight ago, she arrived on Court No 1 with the spring of a woman who had unlocked the secrets of this quirky form of the game.
In doing so, the world No 42 also brought tennis closer to the forefront of an unusual story. For a number of onlookers, her fame has often been traced to her social media activity, and beyond that there was also a doping controversy, from which a positive test was eventually ruled a case of accidental contamination, and an inadvertent race storm.
Coco Gauff has been knocked out of Wimbledon in the first round by Dayana Yastremska
Ukraine’s Yastremska stunned fans on Court No 1 as she produced a 7-6, 6-1 demolition
The latter, in 2020, came from a clumsy attempt to show solidarity at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests by painting one half of her body black. It drew an unintended response.
Here? She did a better job of judging her circumstances, and in doing so capitalising on the nine double faults and 29 unforced errors of an opponent who won her second Slam just a matter of weeks ago.
An illustration of Gauff’s difficulties came from the sight of the American sprawled on her back at 5-2 down in the first set, with her legs pointing in opposite directions and her head in a worse state. By then, she had been pummelled by the Yastremska backhand and had failed to hit so much as a single winner of her own.
When Yastremska then forced a set point at 5-3, Gauff appeared desperately lost, but that brought on a minor, temporary twist. With such an opportunity in her hands, she gave up two double faults in three points and coughed up the break.
If Gauff’s corner was pinning hopes on a prolonged collapse, the relief was misplaced – Yastremska stabilised by dominating the subsequent tiebreak and took the Gauff serve immediately at the start of the second set.
By this point, Gauff was dumping more forehands into the middle to lower reaches of the net than landing clean hits. Her timing was woefully off; her affiliation with this quirk surface never more stressed.
That was emphasised further by a dismal backhand into the net as Gauff went down a second break for 4-1. At 5-1, Gauff had ball in hand again and could not extend the match against a woman giving the performance of her life.
It was only the fifth time in 20 attempts that Yastremska had beaten a player in the top 10. That allergy is manifesting itself in strange ways.
