Coco Gauff’s French Open title defense ends in defeat to Anastasia Potapova

PARIS — Coco Gauff’s French Open title defense ended Saturday, on the court where she collapsed to the clay a year ago as the winner of a second Grand Slam title. A capacity crowd was exploding for her, the biggest star in the sport, triumphing on one of its biggest stages once again.

Fifty-one weeks later, the scenes on Court Philippe-Chatrier could not have been more different. Anastasia Potapova, the Russian-turned-Austrian who has blasted her way back to relevance this spring, came back from a set down to outlast Gauff on arguably her best surface, 4-6, 7-6(1), 6-4, during a strange evening on the tournament’s main stage.

While Gauff and Potapova battled, PSG, France’s top soccer team, faced off against Arsenal in the UEFA Champions League Final. That sucked most of the ticket-holders and nearly all of the life out of the stadium. Instead of having throngs lifting her up in the match’s crucial moments, the action unfolded in front of wide swaths of empty wooden seats.

Still, for a stretch in the middle of the match, it looked like Gauff was going to steam into the second week of the tournament. After losing her serve in the first game of the match, Gauff surged past Potapova from 2-4 down, reeling off four games to take the first set.

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In the second set, she fell behind 1-5, with Potapova holding two chances to serve out the set. Gauff caught fire once more, winning five straight games. With Potapova serving at 5-6, Gauff got within two points of the finish line, but the Austrian held off the charge. Suddenly with room to breathe, Potapova sprinted through the tiebreak, winning 7 of 8 points, as Gauff sprayed errors every which way.

It didn’t take long for Gauff to recover and take control of the third set. She went up 3-1, as Potapova seemed to lose the life in her legs. Once more though, Gauff couldn’t finish her off, a problem that has dogged her throughout the clay-court swing and which she has mostly overcome until now.

Given her high expectations and status as one of the two best clay-court players in the world, it had been a strange couple of months.Illness and Linda Nosková knocked her out of the Madrid Open in the middle of the tournament. She made the finals at the Italian Open, but lost to Elina Svitolina.

Then came Paris, the challenges and pressure of defending a title and a third-round scrap against a talented player playing as well as nearly anyone the past month and brimming with confidence.

Gauff looked up to the challenge for much of the tussle, forcing Potapova to take the initiative if she wanted to win. For most of the match, she couldn’t do it.

But then, at 4-5, a double fault and a poor drop shot got Potapova to match point. Gauff took a big cut at her first forehand. It clanked off the rim of her racket and into the half-empty stands, and her title defense was over.

This is not the way she wanted her Grand Slam summer to start. But Gauff’s game never truly fell apart, like it does when her forehand is on the fritz or her serve is misfiring. She didn’t suffer through a flurry of double-faults. She didn’t get negative and descend into complaints to her coaches. She just got beaten by a player who went on the offensive in the final minutes, having mostly been too tentative to do so for the rest of the match.

“Coco is such a champion, I respect her so much,” Potapova said on the court after it was done.  “I am also a little bit proud of myself that I stayed here fighting to the last point. And I’m here.”