Seventh-seeded Coco Gauff was ousted from Wimbledon by fellow American and 2020 Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin 6-4, 4-6, 6-2 in the first round on Monday in London.
The loss marks Gauff’s earliest exit at Wimbledon in this, her fourth appearance since 2019.
Kenin finished with 22 winners against 18 unforced errors and shrugged off Gauff’s 12 aces. Gauff finished with 33 winners and 33 unforced errors.
“I’m just super –,” Kenin began her on-court interview. “Oh, my God. I can’t even, like, talk. I’m super happy. Coco played a tough match. I knew I needed to play my best in order to win.”
Kenin, who missed last year’s Wimbledon with ankle injuries, has never made it out of the second round at the All England Club in three attempts.
“This means a lot, I had to go through quallies and I battled out there and I just took this match as any other match,” she said. “I knew Coco had a great season, great year, so I’m just super proud of myself.”
Rain paused most of the afternoon action at Wimbledon on opening day, but No. 1 Iga Swiatek sailed into the second round with an easy 6-1, 6-3 win over Lin Zhu of China.
A brief delay to close the roof wasn’t enough to shift momentum for Zhu, who lasted less than 10 minutes after the Court 1 lid was put into place.
Swiatek was forced to withdraw from the semifinals at Bad Homburg on Friday due to an illness, but the Polish star looked perfectly healthy on Monday in a dominant victory.
Swiatek won her opening match in a major for the 15th consecutive time, dating to a 2019 first-round defeat at Wimbledon. She’s seeking a fifth Grand Slam win and first at Wimbledon, where she has yet to advance beyond the fourth round but is a former junior champion.
“I felt really confident. I felt like I did a very good job,” said Swiatek. “I feel really good after Roland Garros. After Roland Garros I took some time to appreciate what happened. Last year it was my second Grand Slam (at the French Open), and it felt overwhelming. This time I could focus on celebrating and actually at getting back to work with more peace in my head.”
Five-time Wimbledon champion Venus Williams lost to Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina 6-4, 6-3. Williams, 43, required an injury timeout after sliding on both feet and shouting in pain as she hit the grass with a 2-0 lead in the first set.
Making her 24th Wimbledon main-draw appearance, and 355th Grand Slam singles match, Williams lost match point after a challenge call and left Centre Court without shaking hands with the umpire.
No. 4 Jessica Pegula survived a challenge from fellow American Lauren Davis in a windy and wet Monday opener, 6-2, 6-7 (8), 6-3.
Pegula had three match-point misfires against Davis, who had only one previous first-round loss in seven prior Wimbledon appearances.
“It was very windy,” Pegula said. “It was hard to really feel like you could get any momentum going because then you’d have the wind gusting. It would kind of keep you off balance and unstable.”
Fifth-seeded Caroline Garcia of France posted a 6-4, 6-3 win over Katie Volynets.
No. 11 Daria Kasatkina and No. 12 Veronika Kudermetova of Russia, No. 14 Belinda Bencic of Switzerland and No. 19 Victoria Azarenka of Belarus earned victories. Other seeded players to advance were No. 23 Magda Linette of Poland, No. 28 Elise Mertens of Belgium, No. 32 Marie Bouzkova of the Czech Republic and No. 30 Petra Martic of Croatia.
Romania’s Ana Bogdan pulled the biggest early upset in a 7-6 (1), 7-6 (4) win over No. 15 seed Liudmila Samsonova of Russia. Later, Katerina Siniakova ousted No. 24 Qinwen Zheng of China in straight sets and Rebeka Masarova of Spain went the distance to upset No. 31 Mayar Sherif of Egypt.
Others advancing include: Alycia Parks, Barbora Strycova, Nadia Podoroska, Diane Parry, Cristina Bucsa, Jodie Burrage, Sara Sorribes Tormo, Marketa Vondrousova, Xinyu Wang, Lesia Tsurenko and Leylah Fernandez.
–Field Level Media
