Coco Gauff’s challenge with Paula Badosa has drawn in the second round of the 2026 US Open. She turned it into an opportunity to show how much she has strengthened her game in recent months.
Tournament No. 4 seed Badosa 6-4, 7-6 on Thursday, winning in straight sets, established a veteran player against whom memory was lost. Gauff will face another Spaniard, Cristina Bucsa, in the third round.
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Gauff was 3-5 against Badosa in the tournament with losses in the past two matches, in Berlin this year and in the quarterfinals last year in Australia. Any repetition concerns were alleviated when Gauff broke Badosa midway through the first round and then bloodied.
A break in the second set gave Gauff a commanding lead as Badosa folded slightly with his break down 3-4. He broke another match after that, setting up a tiebreak to finish the match.
Gauff has played some of her best tennis in more than a year over a few weeks, a span that includes a semifinal appearance at Wimbledon and a title in Cincinnati. It owes a lot to that service which is finally to behave itself, as we saw in the first round of Zeynep Sönmez.
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Across Thursday’s match, Gauff committed five double faults while serving 35 of his first 70 serves (50%). This number isn’t ideal, but it was more important than how effective his shots were when he entered.
The win keeps Gauff on track for a second US Open title and third Grand Slam. If he takes care of business against Bucks, he will get his first opponent with the winner between No. 14 Iva Iovic and No. 17 Alexandra Eala, two exciting rising stars of the sport.
Title at Flushing Meadows, with No. 2 tied Elena Rybakina to avoid a semifinal, Gauff the No. 1 WTA ranking for the first time in her career.