American teenager Coco Gauff made an impressive return to the Grand Slam stage when she brushed aside last year's semi-finalist Johanna Konta 6-3 6-3 to advance into the second round of the French Open on Monday (NZ time).
Less than a month after a first-round exit at the US Open, Gauff was all business on a floodlit Court Suzanne Lenglen in front of a dozen spectators in chilly Parisian weather.
The 16-year-old, the youngest player in the main draw whose best result at a Grand Slam was reaching the fourth round at the Australian Open earlier this year, will next face Italian qualifier Martina Trevisan.
Gauff got off to a flying start, breezing through the opening set before dropping serve early in the second, allowing British ninth seed Konta to move 2-0 up.
But the American broke straight back, and again in a nine-minute fifth game to move 3-2 up, following up on serve to lead 4-2.
She served for the match at 5-2 but Konta broke back for 5-3, only for the Briton to collapse in the following game, bowing out on the second match point when she netted a routine shot.
Meanwhile, former French Open runner-up Venus Williams suffered her second successive first-round loss in a Grand Slam as she went down 6-4 6-4 to Slovakia's Anna Karolina Schmiedlova on Sunday.
With a chill wind blowing and drizzle falling on the Simonne-Mathieu arena, the 40-year-old Williams began strongly but got bogged down in a baseline battle on a slow surface.
The American has now fallen in the opening round at the French Open for the past three years.
Reuters
