Coco Gauff is obviously one of the best players on the WTA tour, and her powerful serve and groundstrokes would imply she should be a high-end winner on grass courts. So far in her career, however, that has not been the case.
The American's best showing at Wimbledon, for instance, has only been reaching the fourth round. To help give her some confidence for the 2026 edition of the major, she needed to find some success at the grass-court Berlin Open. That started with a match against Paula Badosa.
The two players had met seven times previously, and Badosa had the head-to-head lead 4-3. She has a powerful serve that can give any player problems, even the super quick Gauff. Her issue, at times, just as it is for Gauff, is double faults.
Paula Badosa shocks Coco Gauff in the round of 16 at the 2026 Berlin Open
That was an issue in the first set as Badosa had two, but also wasn't getting free points on aces. The American challenged the Spaniard's serve often and took the opening set shockingly easily, 6-1 in just 27 minutes. At that point. Gauff appeared likely to sweep past Badosa with ease.
Not so fast, however. Badosa flipped the script immediately in the second set. She got a break of Gauff in the second game and then held, even under some duress, to race out to a 4-1 lead. After getting another break to get to 5-1, Badosa impressively was about to even the match and sent it to a third and final set. Even a hiccup of a break couldn't stop that, as the Spaniard took set two 6-3.
The third set was stunningly one-sided toward Paula Badosa. After such a strong start in the opening set by Coco Gauff, she seemed to fall apart afterward. This was made worse by her being broken for the second time in the third set by double-faulting to drop to 1-4. The Spaniard then had enough room to make mistakes and still maintain the lead.
The only question truly remaining was whether Gauff would win a second game in the set. She would, but only one more, and dropped the final set 2-6.
As for Badosa, she could feel assured that she would move on to the quarterfinals of the Berlin Open, where she will next face the winner of the match between Linda Noskova and Diane Parry on Friday.
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