PARIS (AP) — Coco Gauff beat Australian Ajla Tomljanovic 6-3, 6-0 on Sunday to extend her 2-0 winning streak at the Paris Olympics, adding to her doubles victory with Jessica Pegula a day earlier.

Gauff is also in the mixed doubles with Taylor Fritz, meaning there could be plenty of matches to play in the 20-year-old American’s Summer Games debut — or so she hopes.

“People in the (athletes’) village ask: ‘Oh, how many does it take to win?’” said Gauff, who made her Olympic debut three years ago after testing positive for COVID-19 when she was supposed to fly to the Tokyo Games. “And I say: ‘I don’t know. I’m in three events and I want to win them all.’”

For the record: It takes 15 victories — six in singles, five in women’s doubles and four in mixed doubles — to collect three tennis gold medals. No one has done that since tennis returned to the Olympics in 1988.

Gauff, who was the flag bearer alongside LeBron James at Friday night’s opening ceremony, took a quick final step and needed just 58 minutes to build a 17-4 lead over Tomljanovic, who defeated Serena Williams at the 2022 US Open in the final match of the 23-time major champion’s career.

Gauff waved to the crowd at the end of the show, then pulled her braids down her back and pointed to the white letters “USA” printed on her blue uniform.

“I’m not going to lie: I was more nervous in doubles than singles. I don’t know why. I think it’s because it was the first match,” said No. 2 Gauff. “And I think when you start a tournament with a win, especially a tournament like this, it gives you more confidence.”

The defending U.S. Open singles champion and French Open doubles champion will face Argentina’s Maria Lourdes Carle in a second-round singles match on Monday.

The winners of the Olympic women’s singles event on Sunday included Gauff’s American teammates Pegula, Emma Navarro and Danielle Collins, Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic, Wimbledon runner-up Donna Vekic of Croatia, 2019 U.S. Open champion Bianca Andreescu of Canada, 2021 U.S. Open runner-up Leylah Fernandez of Canada and No. 7 seed Maria Sakkari of Greece.

One of the top-seeded women to lose was No. 10 Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia, who was eliminated 6–4, 6–3 by Maria Camila Osorio of Colombia. Ostapenko won the 2017 French Open, a Grand Slam tournament contested at Roland Garros, the venue used for these Olympics.

The highlight of the men’s action on Sunday was 14-time French Open champion Rafael Nadal’s 6-1, 4-6, 6-4 victory over Marton Fucsovics of Hungary. Nadal, 38, enters a showdown with Novak Djokovic, 37, in the second round on Monday, a meeting between two giants of the game who have a combined 46 Grand Slam titles and are meeting for a men’s record 60th time.

“It was always very special to play against Novak, wasn’t it? No doubt about it. But the difference is that normally we play for the finals or the semi-finals. This,” Nadal said with a chuckle after his 2½-hour victory, “is the second round.”

Other winners in the men’s category included Tokyo Olympic gold medalist German Alexander Zverev, two-time French Open runner-up Norwegian Casper Ruud, 2021 French Open runner-up Stefanos Tsitsipas, American Tommy Paul and Italian Lorenzo Musetti.

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AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games

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