The Coco Gauff Show came to New York, and she did what she does best

NEW YORK—Somewhere in the messy, thrilling middle of Tuesday's first-round match between Coco Gauff and Anastasia Potapova, ESPN commentator Patrick McEnroe summed up the moment with a succinct question: “We’re watching…teenagers, right?”

Indeed. Gauff is 15 and Potapova is 18, and their three-setter in Louis Armstrong Stadium was exactly as nervy, topsy-turvy and imprecise as you might expect from two players not far removed from the juniors. For the day, Potapova committed 41 unforced errors and hit 16 winners, and she continued to go for broke on her forehand side long after she had lost her rhythm with the shot. Gauff wasn’t much tidier; she made 42 errors, and finished with nearly as many double faults (11) as she did winners (14).

Despite those imperfections, though, this match was the most exciting of the tournament’s first two days. Part of that was the crowd. The lines to get in and see the Teen Vogue cover girl snaked around the grounds at Flushing Meadows, and by the latter stages of this two-hour contest the noise in the arena had risen to a perpetual shriek. But the excitement also came from the two young players themselves, as they fought to find ways to counter each other, and to figure out on the fly what worked best.

Images by Anita Aguilar

In the end, after a bad start and a shaky close, it was Gauff who solved Potapova, 3-6, 6-2, 6-4. At Wimbledon, we got used to seeing Coco pull of these kinds of edge-of-your seat wins, and she didn’t disappoint this time. But it took her a little longer to get there.

Gauff came out over-amped. She double faulted to lose serve early, she sailed her backhands long, she left her forehands short, and Potapova rifled her way to a 5-1 lead. After one winning point, Gauff burst out with a loud scream, something she hadn’t done at Wimbledon. In London she had faced no expectations; now she had the eyes of a country on her.

“It affected me a little bit, but I think that’s normal,” Gauff said when she was asked about the extra pressure today. “This is my first main draw US Open, I’m playing on Louis Armstrong Stadium, second biggest court. After the first set, I was kind of like, I have to reset, stop thinking about what would happen after the match, just think about what I need to do to win the second set.”

What Gauff needed to do, it turned out, was take a little pace off the ball and put a little air under it. Instead of feeding Potapova speed, she made her create it herself, from above her shoulder and deep in the court. The results were immediate. Potapova went from belting clean winners to sending the ball screaming wide of the mark or into the net.

Necessity, in Gauff’s case, was the mother of invention.

“I just wanted to win so bad, I was trying to dig really deep,” she said. “I was like, ‘You got to make her play.’”

If Gauff played smart tennis in the second set, she played good tennis in the third. All of the skills we saw at Wimbledon were in evidence again. Her crosscourt forehands arced high and found the corners; her penetrating down-the-line backhands sent her opponent scrambling; the pace picked up on all of her shots. And even after Potapova was granted a medical timeout for her right arm at 1-4, and then came back to even the match at 4-4, Gauff hung on and found a way to stop her opponent’s momentum one more time.

Just don’t ask Coco how she pulled it off.

“Honestly, I mean, I really don’t remember the match too well because everything is still a blur,” she said. “But I do remember I think that 4-all game, it was just like a lot of battling.”

A lot of battling, and a little help from her friends.

“The crowd really helped me the whole match,” she said. “It was a great atmosphere to play in, and a great experience for me.”

“I think this is my first match where people actually had a chant for me, so that was pretty cool.”

The way Gauff said that last line, it sounded like she doesn’t think this will be the last time the fans in New York are going to chant her name. Can you blame her?

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