By HOWARD FENDRICH AP Tennis Writer
LONDON — Coco Gauff became just the third woman in the Open era to lose in the first round at Wimbledon right after winning the championship at the French Open, eliminated, 7-6 (3), 6-1, by unseeded Dayana Yastremska of Ukraine on Tuesday night.
The second-ranked Gauff made mistake after mistake at Court No. 1, finishing with just six winners and a total of 29 unforced errors that included nine double-faults.
“Dayana started off playing strong,” Gauff said. “I couldn’t find my footing out there today.”
She joined another highly seeded American, No. 3 Jessica Pegula, in bowing out on Day 2 of the tournament. In all, 23 seeds – 13 men and 10 women – already are gone before the first round is even done, tying the most at any Grand Slam tournament since they began seeding 32 players in each singles bracket in 2001.
It was just a little more than three weeks ago that Gauff was celebrating her second Grand Slam title by getting past No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka in the final on the red clay of Roland-Garros.
The quick turnaround might have been an issue, Gauff acknowledged.
“I feel like mentally I was a little bit overwhelmed with everything that came afterwards,” said the 21-year-old Gauff, “so I didn’t feel like I had enough time to celebrate and also get back into it.”
She didn’t think it mattered Tuesday that their match location was shifted from Centre Court to Court No. 1 or that she was told about a new start time only about an hour before the contest began.
Even though Gauff’s big breakthrough came at the All England Club at age 15 in 2019, when she beat Venus Williams in her opening match and made it all the way to the fourth round, the grass-court tournament has proved to be her least-successful major.
It’s the only Slam where Gauff hasn’t made at least the semifinals.
Indeed, she has yet to get past the fourth round and now has been sent home in the first round twice in the past three years.
The transition from clay to grass has proven tough for most players, and the last woman to win the French Open and Wimbledon in the same season was Serena Williams a decade ago.
Still, since the Open era began in 1968, only Justine Henin in 2005 and Francesca Schiavone in 2010 went from holding the trophy in Paris to exiting immediately in London.
Gauff was never quite at her best Tuesday against Yastremska, who had lost all three of their previous matchups and currently is ranked 42nd.
A particular problem for Gauff, as it often is, was her serving. She managed to put only 45% of her first serves in play, won 14 of her 32 second-serve points and had all of those double-faults, including a pair in the tiebreaker and another when she got broken to open the second set.
“When I can serve well, and some games I did, it’s definitely an added threat,” Gauff said. “I didn’t serve that well.”
Yastremska’s best Grand Slam result was making it all the way to the semifinals on the Australian Open’s hard courts last year, although she entered this event with a record of only 10-11 in first-round matches at majors.
Gauff, by contrast, was 20-3 at that stage, including a loss to Sofia Kenin at Wimbledon in 2023.
Yastremska’s deepest run at Wimbledon was making the fourth round in 2019, although she did get to the final of the junior event in 2016.
“I was really on fire,” said Yastremska, who accumulated 16 winners. “Playing against Coco, it is something special.”
She recently reached her first tournament final on grass, at a smaller event in Nottingham, which she said gave her confidence heading to the All England Club.
“I love playing on grass. I feel that this year we are kind of friends,” Yastremska said with a laugh. “I hope the road will continue for me here.”
SEEDS FALLING IN RECORD NUMBERS
Gauff was not alone among the high-profile early exits.
There was three-time Grand Slam finalist and third-seeded Alexander Zverev, outplayed over five sets in a first-round loss at Wimbledon to 72nd-ranked Arthur Rinderknech, who entered Tuesday with a 1-4 career record at the All England Club and zero trips past the third round in 18 appearances at majors.
There was No. 7 Lorenzo Musetti, a semifinalist at Wimbledon last year and at the French Open last month, sent home Tuesday by Nikoloz Basilashvili, a qualifier ranked 126th who only once has made it as far as the fourth round in his 31 previous Grand Slam tournaments.
And on and on went the upsets on Day 2.
Third-seeded Pegula also was was the runner-up at last year’s U.S. Open and was coming off a grass-court title in Germany over the weekend, defeating Iga Swiatek in the final, yet didn’t pose much of a challenge to 116th-ranked Elisabetta Cocciaretto in a 6-2, 6-3 loss that lasted less than an hour.
Two other major finalists, No. 5 Zheng Qinwen and No. 15 Karolina Muchova, were eliminated Tuesday, as were No. 26 Marta Kostyuk and No. 25 Magdalena Frech, whose opponent, 18-year-old Canadian Victoria Mboko, lost in qualifying last week and only got into the field when another player, Anastasia Potapova, withdrew with an injured hip.
Nothing was quite as out-of-nowhere, though, as Rinderknech’s success. At least Yastremska has been a major semifinalist, at the 2024 Australian Open.
“What a moment. Such emotions,” Rinderknech, a 29-year-old from France, said after completing his 7-6 (3), 6-7 (8), 6-3, 6-7 (5), 6-4 victory across 4 hours, 40 minutes against Zverev in a match suspended Monday night at a set apiece. “I don’t even know where to start.”
He ended things with a backhand winner, then dropped to his stomach, face down, on Centre Court.
Zverev joined Musetti – who hadn’t played since a leg injury forced him to stop at Roland-Garros and was a 6-2, 4-6, 7-5, 6-1 loser against Basilashvili – as top-10 losers on Tuesday, a day after No. 8 Holger Rune and No. 9 Daniil Medvedev departed.
Other seeded men exiting on Day 2 included No. 18 Ugo Humbert, No. 27 Denis Shapovalov, No. 28 Alexander Bublik and No. 30 Alex Michelsen.
Rinderknech pulled off his win thanks to some terrific serving, delivering 25 aces and saving all nine break points he faced. He converted three break chances against Zverev and won the point on 44 of his 55 trips to the net.
“It’s my first top-five win, in the biggest stadium in the world,” Rinderknech said. “My legs are still shaking. I’m just so happy the match is finished.”
WHAT ELSE HAPPENED TUESDAY?
Two-time champion Petra Kvitova played her final match at the All England Club, bowing out 6-3, 6-1 against No. 10 Emma Navarro. “This place holds the best memories I could wish for,” said the 35-year-old Kvitova, who will retire after the U.S. Open. “I never dreamed of winning a Wimbledon and I won it twice.” Defending women’s champion Barbora Krejcikova and men’s No. 4 seed Taylor Fritz both needed comebacks to win, and top-seeded Jannik Sinner was never troubled in a straight-set victory. Novak Djokovic was in action later.
WHO PLAYS WEDNESDAY?
No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka starts the Centre Court program against Marie Bouzkova at 1:30 p.m. local time (5:30 a.m. PT), followed by two-time defending men’s champion Carlos Alcaraz against 733rd-ranked University of San Diego player Oliver Tarvet of Britain, and then 2023 Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova vs. 2021 U.S. Open champion Emma Raducanu.
More to come on this story.