Coco Gauff arrived at the Miami Open against her team’s wishes, stepped onto the court with something to prove, and left with a win. The world No. 4 rallied from a set down to defeat Elisabetta Cocciaretto 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 on Friday, advancing to the third round of the WTA 1000 tournament despite an injury scare that had her medical team urging her to stay home.
The two-time Grand Slam champion limped out of her third-round match at Indian Wells earlier this month, retiring against Alexandra Eala while trailing 6-2, 2-0. A subsequent MRI revealed a nerve-related issue that alarmed those around her and prompted her team to advise withdrawal from Miami altogether. Gauff overruled them.
Gauff entered with no expectations and left with a statement
The match against Cocciaretto was not clean. Gauff committed 11 double faults and 39 unforced errors across the two hours and change it took to close out the contest. The Italian, who had beaten Gauff recently in Doha, controlled the opening set with sharp ball striking and forced the American to adjust on the fly.
Gauff found her footing in the second set, improving her first-serve consistency and settling into longer rallies where her athleticism became an advantage. The third set was the turning point. After falling behind a break, she won four consecutive games to regain control and eventually close out the match.
The win was not elegant, but it was meaningful. Gauff entered the tournament with no expectations attached, a mindset shaped entirely by the circumstances surrounding her participation. She had already decided that playing and struggling was preferable to watching from the sideline for three weeks.
A pattern of ignoring advice and winning anyway
This is not the first time Gauff has pushed back against her team’s caution and been vindicated. At the China Open last season, her team similarly advised against competing. She played anyway, reached the semifinals and won the title. The parallel was not lost on her as she prepared for Miami.
Her stubbornness, by her own characterization, is a defining trait. The decision to play in Miami was made with full awareness of the risk, weighed against the certainty of regret that she felt would come from sitting out. With clay season approaching, she reasoned that a bad result in Miami would at least leave her with time to train, while skipping the tournament entirely would leave her with nothing but doubt.
The nerve issue that surfaced at Indian Wells adds a layer of uncertainty to everything that follows. Gauff has not placed any performance expectations on herself for the remainder of the tournament, and her team’s concerns have not disappeared simply because the first match went her way.
Parks awaits in the third round
Gauff’s next opponent is fellow American Alycia Parks, a matchup that carries a different kind of weight. The two have known each other for years, having trained together on public courts near Miami long before either was competing on stages this large. Gauff defeated Parks 6-2, 6-2 at the 2024 Australian Open, but acknowledges that Parks has developed considerably since then.
The third-round contest figures to be tighter than that result suggests. Parks has been playing well entering the tournament, and a matchup between two Americans who grew up competing against each other rarely follows a predictable script. For Gauff, the goal remains the same as it was walking into the Cocciaretto match, to keep winning and keep proving the doubters wrong, starting with the ones in her own corner.
