Coco Gauff likes a fast-paced match, and she got the opposite in the first round of the U.S. Open against German qualifier Laura Siegemund.
It nearly rattled the No. 6-seeded American.
It briefly took her out of her game.
It resulted in a tense, two-hour and 51-minute battle in which both players unleashed their frustrations on the umpire.
But Gauff overcame her first-set struggles and pulled out a 3-6, 6-2, 6-4 victory over Siegemund at Arthur Ashe Stadium on Monday night, in front of an animated audience that featured Barack and Michelle Obama.
The win was Gauff’s sixth in a row and tees up a second-round bout with 16-year-old Mirra Andreeva of Russia on Wednesday.
Asked by former player and current broadcaster Pam Shriver to describe what it was like to play that match, Gauff was blunt.
“Slow,” she said.
There was nothing easy about this matchup for Gauff, who let Siegemund dictate the pace and dominate at the net in the first set.
Siegemund won 10 of 13 net points in the first frame, attacking with a precision that Gauff struggled to answer.
So for the second straight consecutive Grand Slam, Gauff flirted with a first-round exit.
It was only after a riveting, 26-minute first game of the second set that Gauff swung the momentum in her favor.
In a game that required 12 deuces, Gauff finally converted on her eighth breakpoint when Siegemund’s forehand landed in the net.
That allowed Gauff to find her rhythm a bit, which prompted Siegemund to lean heavier into her apparent strategy of slowing the game down as much as she possibly could.
Gauff expressed her displeasure with Siegemund’s deliberate, sluggish pace after she had taken a 3-0 lead in the third set.
Siegemund repeatedly went to the side to use the towel when it was Gauff’s serve, and even threw her hands up as if to say “I wasn’t ready” at one point.
“I don’t care what she’s doing on her serve, on my serve she has to be ready,” Gauff could be seen saying to the umpire.
Siegemund lost her spark once she started complaining to the umpire about the rowdy fans sometime during the second set.
That, of course, only made the New Yorkers in attendance more rambunctious.
The Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd was behind Gauff every step of the way anyway.
Whenever she needed a pick-me-up, there were cheers.
Whenever she was staring down a breakpoint, they hollered her name.
And those in the stands gave Siegemund the polar-opposite energy, borderline tormenting the 35-year-old whenever they could — and especially when the umpire penalized her for her second time violation in the third set.
Siegemund shook Gauff’s hand at the end of the match, but not the umpire’s.