It hardly seems possible that seven years have passed since a 15-year-old Coco Gauff announced herself on the world scene with a brilliant victory here over Venus Williams in the first round. Gauff has since won two grand slam titles and been ranked as high as world No 2.
Her form has been up and down, her serve and forehand occasionally brittle, especially when the pressure is ramped up. But there is no better scrapper in the game and invariably, even when things go awry, she finds a way to dig deep.
On Wednesday, she was twice within two points of defeat against Solana Sierra of Argentina, but somehow scrambled through to the third round.
Sierra, who beat Emma Raducanu in the first round at Roland Garros last month and reached the last 16 here last year, led 5-3, 30-30 in the final set and then 5-4, 30-30, but Gauff broke back and then recovered from 7-4 down in the deciding tie-break to snatch a 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (7) victory.
“I’m happy and proud of myself,” Gauff said, adding she had recalled the words of her coach, who tells her to remember who she is, that she is good at breaking serve.
Seeded seventh, Gauff said the memories of her win over Venus are still fresh. “Every time I walk down this hallway [by Centre Court], I get deja vu,” she said.
“I remind myself if I could do that [seven] years ago I’m definitely a better player now so I definitely can do it now.”
Aryna Sabalenka channelled her inner Rafael Nadal to get herself out of trouble in the second set of her 6-1, 7-6 (9) victory over a valiant McCartney Kessler. The American had four set points to extend it to a decider, but the top seed stood firm to set up a third-round match with the former French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko.
Sabalenka breezed through the first set, but Kessler found her game in the second, mixing up big backhands down the line with a fine net game, even serving and volleying on occasion. She led 5-2 and then had two set points on serve at 5-3, but Sabalenka came up with two blistering backhand winners to get back on serve.
In the tie-break, Kessler led 7-6 and 8-7, but Sabalenka held on to extend her winning record in grand slam tie-breaks to 21.
When she needs inspiration, she knows where to look. “I watched the Nadal documentary,” she said, referring to the Netflix programme released last month. “He said: ‘The only thing you can control is your focus and motivation.’ It really sticks deep inside of me.
“Sometimes now during matches, whenever things are going wrong, I’m like, the only thing you can control is focus and motivation. That was very strong.
“On the tie-break, I’m willing to focus point by point, not going really too far in the future or staying too much in the past. That’s been really working well. I’m free. I trust my shots on the tie-break. That really makes a big difference.
“Also, tie-break is a thing [that] the way you start it [is] most likely the way it’s going to go. Every point makes a difference, at the beginning especially. Trusting my shots and staying aggressive on the tie-breaks really helps me to get these incredible stats.”
The fourth seed, Jessica Pegula, defeated Sara Sorribes Tormo 7-6 (6), 6-1 while the 10th seed Karolina Muchova, the winner of the warm-up tournament in Bad Homburg, eased past Zhang Shuai of China 6-3, 6-2.
