COCO Gauff admires Filipina sensation Alexandra Eala’s shrewdness on the clay courts of Foro Italico in Rome.
The 21-year-old Gauff expressed her liking of Eala’s game after they won their their first-round match over Fanny Stollar and Alexandra Panova, 6-1, 6-3, and got ready for the women’s doubles’ second round of the Internazionali BNL d’Italia’s Tennis Tournament, also known as the 2025 Italian Open.
“She seems chill. She seems like she’s working hard, so I don’t have any advice for her just because she seems relaxed. The only thing I did tell her was that doubles helped me a lot in that space, having some time on court where it’s a little less stressful,” said Gauff in a post-game interview posted on social media.
Gauff and Eala will next meet Italian netters Tyra Grant and Lisa Pigato in the second round.
Grant and Pigato arranged a clash with Eala and Gauff after they eliminated Kazakh bet Anna Kalinina and the Russian Irina Khromacheva, 2-6, 6-4 10-5, in an hour and 27 minutes of play.
“So, I encouraged her to play when she could,” added Gauff, who revealed she agreed to team up with Eala after the Filipina netter chatted with the world no. 3 singles netter on Instagram.
Their partnership, according to Gauff materialized after she reached the fourth round in singles
“She DM’d me on Instagram. She slid in my DMs and asked me to play. I was like, “Sure, why not?” We really didn’t know each other, honestly, before Madrid. I said hi to her for the first time in Madrid or maybe Miami, we may have briefly said hello. I figured she would be nice so I was just hoping she would be, you know,” recalled Gauff.
The American superstar, who has reached two Italian Open doubles’ finals with two different partners, has reached the fourth round after disposing of Polish netter Magda Linette, 7-5, 6-3.
She will face British bet Emma Raducanu next. Raducanu advanced to the fourth round after getting past Russian foe Veronika Kudermetova, 5-7, 6-0, 6-1.