Coco Gauff reached the second round of the year's final Grand Slam tournament, the US Open. The 2023 champion beat Ajla Tomljanovic 6-4, 6-7 (2), 7-5 in a match that lasted three hours.

The home favorite was broken in her first service game. However, Tomljanovic lost her advantage, and then allowed another break, which ended the opening set. The second one was very dramatic. Gauff led with a break twice, but invariably lost her lead. Tomljanovic broke for 5-4 and served to equalize, but missed two set points, and so it eventually came to a tiebreak. In it, the 79th in the world rankings was more than decisive, winning with 7-2 points. In the third decisive set, Gauff again lost a two-break lead twice, including at 5-4 and serving for the victory. However, she found strength to make another break, which finally ended the dispute between the two.

The match was punctuated by many nerves and errors on both sides of the net. In total, the spectators saw six aces and as many as 17 double faults, and with the winners and unforced errors the situation was even more nightmarish - a total of 41 winning shots from both tennis players, against 115 unforced errors.

Gauff will play in the next round with Donna Vekic from Croatia, who eliminated the Spaniard Jessica Bouzas Maneiro.

The champion from Cincinnati and one of the main favorites to triumph in New York - the second in the scheme Iga Swiatek, dealt with the Colombian Emiliana Arango after 6-1, 6-2 in about an hour of play.

Two-time champion Naomi Osaka started with a straight-set victory over Greet Minnen of Belgium. The 23rd seed will face home player Hailey Baptiste. Wimbledon finalist and eighth seed Amanda Anisimova also advanced. | BGNES