Gauff Survives Early Scare To Win Opening Match At Roland Garros

American sixth seed Coco Gauff survived an early scare in her opening match at the French Open to advance to round two of the second Grand Slam of the season.

The 2022 Roland Garros runner-up fought back from behind to win 3-6 6-1 6-2 against Spain's Rebeka Masarova.

Gauff had to endure an opening set, failing to win or take any of eight break points before she regained her confidence at the start of the second set.

With the American's morale boosted, her shots overwhelmed Masarova and forced the Spaniard into more errors to emerge victorious in their first clay-court meeting.

Focused ?@CocoGauff overcomes a slow start to defeat Masarova 3-6, 6-1, 6-2.#RolandGarros pic.twitter.com/io3p70d0uU

— Roland-Garros (@rolandgarros) May 30, 2023

Reflecting on her win, Gauff said she has put last year’s final defeat to Iga Swiatek behind her, insisting that she is confident of making a deep run in the clay-court event this year.

"The (2022) final is in the past so I'm not worried about that,” she said.

"I had some bad games in the first set but I knew that I was going to be able to turn it around.

"Today, there were aspects of my game where I wasn't playing my best but I'm confident on this surface in these conditions."

Gauff will now face Austria's Julia Grabher who beat Arantxa Rus 6-2, 6-3 to move into round two.