Six breaks steer Gauff past Valentova in Rome

Defending finalist Coco Gauff made a winning return to the Internazionali BNL d’Italia on Thursday with a 6-3, 6-4 win over Czech teenager Tereza Valentova.

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The third seeded needed 1 hour and 34 minutes to pick up her 18th career match win at the Foro Italico — which is a career-best win total for the American at tournaments outside of the four Grand Slams on the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz. She broke Valentova’s serve six times in the win, improving to 2-0 against her after beating her at Roland Garros last spring.

Gauff said afterwards that the “super talented” Valentova “definitely stepped up her level” in the rematch, particularly on return. Gauff served seven double faults in the match — but balanced things out by winning more 60% of the points played in the Czech’s service games.

” I felt like I was having to try so hard to hit big serves,” Gauff said, adding: “I missed some because she was pressuring my serve.”

“A lot of things I thought she would do she didn’t do, which I guess makes sense because last year didn’t go so well [for her],” Gauff continued. “There were some changes, but I think that just goes with improvement.”

Other key stats from Gauff’s win included:

2: Gauff’s win against the 19-year-old Valentova snapped a short skid against players younger than her. Gauff is now 15-4 in her career against younger players — but just 3-3 since beating Valentova on her way to the title in Paris last year. She had lost her last two matches to such players — first to Alexandra Eala in Indian Wells (by retirement) and last week to Linda Noskova in Madrid.

4: The American stormed out of the gates in the opening set, winning the first four games. In set two, Gauff lost a pair of marathon service games that pulled Valentova level at 3-3 and 4-4 — but won the last two games to carry herself over the line.

6: In addition to breaking Valentova’s serve six times, Gauff also saved six of the 10 break points she faced in the match.

7: Since that loss via retirement to Eala in March, Gauff is 7-0 against players ranked outside the Top 50 in the PIF WTA Rankings.

17: In a statistical oddity, Valentova hit two more winners than Gauff (17 to 15), and also two fewer unforced errors (27 to 29). But Gauff won nearly 20 more total points — 75 to 58.

20: Gauff has now recorded 20 wins this season in 28 matches played.

Gauff will next face unseeded Argentine Solana Sierra in the third round. Sierra defeated former Rome finalist Anhelina Kalinina 6-2, 6-3 to continue on in her main-draw debut in Rome, following a fourth-round effort in Madrid last week.