MELBOURNE, Australia – Coco Gauff is out at the Australian Open.
On a hot, sunny day at Rod Laver Arena that seemed tailored to her strength, and in a match in which she was a Grand Slam veteran, Gauff lost to Spain’s Paula Badosa. Badosa, who returned from an injury that could end her career at Wimbledon this year, achieved the biggest Grand Slam win of her career, beating the 20-year-old American 7-5, 6-4.
Gauff fell victim to her shaky forehand again, but she also fell victim to a more assertive Badosa, who has taken the same aggressive approach as Gauff’s opponents over the past 10 days and four, now five, matches.
After three months of watching Gauff attack to win nearly every match and tournament she played, her opponents began to realize they could no longer rely on Gauff’s weaknesses to get the better of her. They have to attack it before it attacks them.
Badosa said that was her plan after her fourth-round match. This was the easy part. She also did the hard part and made it work. Badosa captured every short ball – many of which were not very short – and hoped enough of them would reach his goals. Gauff tried to counter Badosa’s power with her own and they played like two winning fighters, with no interest in dancing around each other. They just wanted to swing.
Gauff looked like she was going to put Badosa on the ropes midway through the first set, but she never got a break point, and by the end of the set her previously weak forehand, which had been mostly stable over the past few months as she adjusted her approach, began to wither under Badosa’s pressure.
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The match turned on Gauff’s serve at 5-5 in the first set, with Badosa and Gauff playing the high point of the match, with Gauff chasing down Badosa’s attacks and Badosa getting the opener with a brilliant half-volley from what looked like a certainty. A soft volley from Gauff had the American applauding her and two more audacious forehands on the next point gave her a break before serving for the set.
Paula Badosa exorcised her demons with a grand slam in Melbourne. (Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)
It seemed that Gauff, who left the court after the first set, might take the lead at the start of the second set. After losing her first service game, she broke back and tied the set in two games, but as the big error continued to hurt her, she dropped her serve again and lost 5-2.
Badosa entered the quarterfinals with scar tissue that she had been trying to heal since her return to tennis. In the quarterfinals of the 2024 US Open against Emma Navarro, she took a 5-1 lead in the second set after dropping the first. She lost six matches in a row and said, in Rafael Nadal style, that she “did a disaster.” Even Navarro said she didn’t think a third set was coming when she couldn’t afford to lose another match.
“I came in and wanted to play my best game. I think I did that,” Badosa said on court.
“A year ago I was here with my back down and didn’t know if I should quit this sport,” she said.
Once a world No. 2, Badosa won the WTA 1000 tournament in Indian Wells, California. But the back injury, as doctors there told her in 2024, looked like it might be tough to overcome.
This past season, she balanced rehab and match practice, never knowing how far her back might take her. She reached the quarterfinals of the US Open. I lost it. Another quarterfinal loss at the French Open in 2021, where she lost 8-6 in the third set, also persisted.
Scar tissue appeared on a missed shot that she evaded, and it showed up again when she tried to serve. Gauff took control of the match, serving at 3-5 down, stealing a point she should have lost when Badosa swung her racquet straight. She held out from 40 to 30 and put the pressure back on the Spaniard.
This time, Badosa held her own. She bombed two aces and allowed Gauff to get just one point in the final. When the match ended, she knelt down, then headed towards the net, where Gauff was waiting for her in disappointment. Demons have been cast out of New York.
When it was over, the numbers told the story. Gauff committed six double faults and 35 unforced errors on her groundstrokes. Badosa committed two double faults and 20 unforced errors from the floor; Gauff committed 22 errors to 17.
Gauff can take some solace in moving one round further than she did in the last two Grand Slam tournaments, but after winning the WTA Tour Finals, she did not play a Grand Slam to reach the quarterfinals. She arrived planning to be alive for her final weekend. She will have to wait until the French Open next May to get another chance to make it happen. Before that, she will have the opportunity to prove that her impressive 22-2 winning streak between the US Open and this defeat represents sustained progress, not another masterful overcoming of a fundamental problem that still needs to be fully resolved.
(Top image: Getty Images)