Coco Gauff bows out, Jannik Sinner moves on in early Thursday results

There is something great about the European swing of tennis this time of year. You can wake up, have your coffee, turn on…well, whatever you watch tennis on, and relax. Of course, if you are a fan of Coco Gauff, this hasn’t been a good day so far. But if you like Jannik Skinner, it has!

It’s been a tough week for seeded players on the women’s side. Four seeds lost on Wednesday at the Rothesay Classic, while second-seeded Elena Rybakina lost at the Bett1 Open. Thursday isn’t starting much better for the top players as Coco Gauff lost in straight sets to Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-4 6-0.

But don’t worry because the match wasn’t anywhere as close as even the blowout score might imply. Guaff actually led 3-1 in the first set before losing 11 of the next 12 games. Gauff did have some excellent rallies, but she was undone by 27 forehand unforced errors, and Alexandrova won 45.2 percent of her returns on Coco Gauff’s first serve. Alexandrova now moves on to play either one-seed Aryna Sabalenka or Veronika Kudermetova on Friday.

Coco Gauff loses in the Bett1 Open on Thursday

On the men’s side. Italian Jannik Sinner defeated countryman Lorenzo Sonego in a nearly three-hour match 6-7 6-4 6-4. It helps Sinner that Sonego could not convert any of the eight chances he had to break Sinner. Sinner, meanwhile, was able to get two break points of Sonego, and that made the difference in the match.

Sinner seems like he has been around for 10 years already, but he is one of the legions of very good, if inconsistent, players coming up on the men’s tour. Carlos Alcaraz is only 20 years old while Holger Rune is also just 20. Sinner is only 21 years old and if he can find some consistency in his game over a long stretch could be a long-term threat to Alcaraz and most majors. He is a threat at Wimbledon as well as he has a good serve and moves around the court extremely well.