Coco Gauff’s Comeback Victory Over Sachia Vickery at Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart 2024

To begin her clay-court career in 2024, Coco Gauff produced an amazing comeback, rallying from the point of defeat to defeat Sachia Vickery 6-3, 4-6, 7-5.

After coming within five points of defeating the defending US Open champion, Vickery looked to be on track to win her second career Top 10 match. However, Gauff, playing for the first time since the Miami Open in March, overcame 49 unintentional mistakes to win 12 of the final 14 points and cross the finish line in two hours and 26 minutes on Stuttgart’s Center Court.

In fact, Vickery’s only Top 10 victory occurred at the 2018 BNP Paribas Open against the then-world No. 3 Garbine Muguruza. Like at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden, the 28-year-old American was competing as a qualifier; he had already defeated higher-ranked Greet Minnen to get to the main draw and then defeated another qualifier, Aliaksandra Sasnovich, to secure a matchup with Gauff in the round of 16.

The current US Open winner, a past finalist at Roland Garros, was participating in her first match on any kind of surface since Caroline Garcia defeated her in her own competition at Hard Rock Stadium. The 20-year-old was participating in her third match in Stuttgart; her finest performance occurred in April of last year, when she advanced to the second round but fell to Anastasia Potapova.

Even yet, before the match began, Gauff was ahead of Vickery, who reached his highest rating of No. 73 in the rankings back in 2018. She easily won the first three games and withstood a late push to close out the first set after saving five break points in a lengthy ninth game.

Despite this, Vickery maintained her late momentum into the second game, where she shocked the Stuttgart crowd by gaining a 4-2 lead and shaking off a setdown while serving to force a decider to break straight back.

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In the decisive set, Gauff won the first two games but lost the next four, causing more momentum swings. When the world No. 3 started to show signs of life and took advantage of some sluggish serving from her countrymate to get the set back on serve, Vickery looked to be headed for a fifth.

Vickery, who had been one game away from losing three in a row, turned the tide in her favor at 4–4, forcing Gauff to serve in order to continue the match. With style, Gauff answered, scoring eight points in a row to put herself in position to advance to the quarterfinals.

Recovering from a double fault, Gauff remained composed to finish the comeback and secure a quarterfinal matchup with either No. 5 seed Zheng Qinwen or Marta Kostyuk, whom she had previously defeated in the January 2024 Australian Open last eight.