118 CHA

At 21, Coco Gauff He crowned in Paris by conquering his primer Roland Garroshis second Grand Slam, after defeating the number 1 in the world, the Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka, 6-7 (5), 6-2 and 6-4, in 2 hours and 38 minutes.

Three years after having played her first final on the whipped land of Paris with 18 years, Florida’s tennis player, number 2 of the ranking, becomes consecrated on the track where she accumulates more triumphs and Add the Suzanne Lengalen Cup to the United States Open that it got in 2022after defeating Sabalenka in the final. Gauff took the revenge of the recent final of Madrid, where he lost against Sabalenka, and the sixth victory in eleven duels stood.

The young player, who this year had played the finals of Madrid and Rome, becomes the first American who conquers Roland Garros since in 2015 Serena Williams lifted her third cup in Paris and the youngest since she won it for the first time in 2002. An example of precocity that with her first Roland Garros is placed on the way to a legendary career.

Gauff has demonstrated in this tournament his ability to sacrifice and his will not to surrender. In the final he raised a first set lost for the second time consecutive, after he did the same in the quarterfinals before his compatriot Madison Keys, winner of the Australian Open. Nothing stops the small tennis player of Florida, who laid on the whipped land of the Philippe Chatrier before releasing a cry of rage as soon as the second match ball is good.

The Belarusian stayed at the gates of her room Grand Slam and maintains a pending debt to Paris, after her worst match of the fortnight, weighed by the 70 uninforced errors that ended up condemning him. Sabalenka went overwhelming to the duel, a sponsorship who took a gauff who had taken time to adapt to the annoying wind that beat in the cloudy Parisian afternoon. The 4-1 bothered a stand that feared an express final, such as the 2022, when with only 18 years the American barely started four games to the Polish IgA Swiatek. But with the passing of the minutes, Florida’s was dominated the wind, while Sabalenka was more tense, a melting pot of errors that matched 4 the duel, now turned into a face or cross that could fall anywhere. A leaf to the wind, aimless, without any of the two dominant rivals, with up to eight service breaks that had its apotheosis in the ninth game, more than a quarter of a fight with two set balls wasted by the berous The American to mark the first set after an hour and 17 minutes of maximum intensity.

Morally intact, Florida’s put with advantage since the beginning of the second blanket, 2-0 and 4-1, direct to tie the duel in which Sabalenka lowered the piston, unable to recover her powerful right-wing blow, turned into a toy in the hands of the rival.

Things were not improved in the Belarusian field that granted an advantage in the fourth game of the third set and, although he recovered it in the sixth, let him escape again in the next. Gauph clinging to the advantage that led to glory, to the throne that in the last three editions had occupied the Polish IgA Swatek and that, based on self -denial, has appropriated.