Defending champion Coco Gauff lost 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 to Emma Navarro in an all-American fourth round match at the US Open on Sunday, unable to make up for a poor performance that included more double faults (19) than winners (14).
Third-seeded Gauff had won ten consecutive matches at Flushing Meadows, including her run to her first Grand Slam title last year.
Four of those came after losing the first set – including in the 2023 final and in her third-round win on Friday – but this time the 20-year-old from Florida was unable to complete the comeback, despite a four-game run midway through the match in which she won 14 of 17 points, stole the second set and got off to a good start in the third set.
After her last two matches in New York, Gauff went back to the practice courts to work on her serve. That didn’t help her much on Sunday, as she committed three double faults in each of the three matches – losing two of them at 1-1 in the first set and, more importantly, at 1-1 in the third. Eleven of the double faults came in the last set alone.
Aside from those issues, Gauff made a total of 60 unforced errors – a whopping 29 of them on the forehand side, the biggest weakness of her game. The 23-year-old Navarro, who also eliminated Gauff in the fourth round at Wimbledon in July, was much more confident on Sunday, making 35 unforced errors.
This result follows defending champion Novak Djokovic’s surprise third-round loss on Friday night, extending a long dry spell without back-to-back titles in New York. The last woman to win at least two titles in a row was Serena Williams with three titles from 2012 to 2014; the last man was Roger Federer with five titles from 2004 to 2008.
The Wimbledon victory over Gauff gave Navarro, the 2021 NCAA singles champion for the University of Virginia, her first appearance in a major quarterfinal. Her second match will be on Tuesday in New York against No. 26 Paula Badosa, who beat Wang Yafan 6-1, 6-2.
