German women’s tennis player Tatjana Maria lost 6-4, 6-0 to Coco Gauff in the second round of the women’s singles tournament at the U.S. Open on Wednesday.
On Friday, Maria admitted she napped during the U.S. Open in between matches, since her match against Gauff was at 7 p.m. Maria is a 37-year-old mother of two from Germany.
“In the evening, I get tired, like everybody else, so that’s why I have to take a nap,” she said. “I have to rest pretty much the whole afternoon to be ready for the evening.”
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Coco Gauff in action during a second round match of the U.S. Open tennis championships on Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024 in New York City. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
Maria is not even the only player who has napped in between matches in Flushing, Queens this week. Zhang Zhizhen, 27, who won a silver medal for China in mixed doubles at the Paris Olympics, admitted to it as well. Zhizhen lost in the first round to England’s Jack Draper on Tuesday.
“If I feel tired, I want to sleep, so I go to sleep. Maybe if I have the first match at 11 a.m., I don’t have enough time. But any other match, I probably will take a nap for 10 or 15 minutes,” he said. “Sometimes in the afternoon, I will sleep for one or two hours.”
Coco Gauff tries to cool down with a bag of ice while playing Croatia’s Donna Vekic during their women’s singles third round tennis match on Court Philippe-Chatrier at the Roland-Garros Stadium during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in Paris on July 30, 2024. (PATRICIA DE MELO MOREIRA/AFP via Getty Images)
Meanwhile, Gauff is moving on to third round against Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina on Friday. She will look to defend her U.S. Open singles title after taking the event by storm last year at just 19 years old.
Gauff has had a good run at the event so far after coming into Queens off a string of shocking losses.
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Tatjana Maria of Germany, left, and Coco Gauff of the United States shake hands at the net after the second round on Day 3 of the US Open at USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center on Aug. 28, 2024 in New York City. (Robert Prange/Getty Images)
At Wimbledon in early July, Gauff lost in the women’s singles round of 16 to Emma Navarro and then in the doubles quarterfinal. She then lost at the Paris Olympics in the third round of women’s singles, the second round of women’s doubles and the quarterfinals of mixed doubles.
At the Canadian Open on Aug. 9, as the top seed, she lost in the round of 16 to lesser-known opponent and 14th-seeded Diana Shnaider. Gauff’s recent appearance at the Cincinnati Masters may have been her worst one yet, when she lost her very first match in the round of 32 to Yulia Antonovna Putintseva of Kazakhstan.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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