No.5 seed Coco Gauff kicked off her campaign at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships with a 6-0, 6-4 victory over World No.44 Aliaksandra Sasnovich in the second round on Tuesday night.
Here are some key numbers from Gauff's first WTA 1000 match-win of the 2023 season:
18: Gauff, who is still three weeks shy of her 19th birthday, is aiming to be the first teenager to ever win the Dubai singles title. The youngest champion of the event is still Martina Hingis, who won the 2001 title when she was 20 years old.
70: After her first-round bye, Gauff moved one step closer to setting that record by defeating Sasnovich in 70 minutes. In their first meeting, Gauff held off a second-set surge by 28-year-old Sasnovich, who has a career-high ranking of World No.29.
Hey @MiamiHEAT, how's this for a slam dunk 😎@CocoGauff | #DDFTennis pic.twitter.com/PgNuD3KdnF
— wta (@WTA) February 21, 2023
8: Gauff reeled off the first eight games of the match. The American teen swept through the 6-0 first set, converting three of her five break points while erasing the two break points she faced during that timeframe.
34: In the second set, Sasnovich rebounded from 4-1 down to 4-4. However, Gauff polished off a great defensive rally with a forehand winner to hold at 5-4, and she broke Sasnovich at love to close out the win. Sasnovich was undone by 34 unforced errors in the match, 21 more than Gauff.
90%: Gauff broke Sasnovich six times, taking advantage of second serves when she could. Sasnovich missed only 10 of 51 first serves in the match, but when she did, Gauff won 90 percent of those points (9-for-10).
1-0: Gauff will now take on No.9 seed Elena Rybakina in a showdown between Top 10 players. Gauff leads their head-to-head 1-0, having edged reigning Wimbledon champion Rybakina 6-4, 6-7(8), 7-6(3) in Toronto last year.
6: Rybakina also picked up her second-round win on Tuesday night, defeating 26th-ranked Marie Bouzkova 7-5, 6-2. 2023 Australian Open finalist Rybakina slammed six aces for the second match in a row on her way to setting the clash with Gauff.