Marta Kostyuk scores Coco Gauff upset in Doha

Marta Kostyuk kickstarted her 2025 season with a 6-2, 7-5 win over Coco Gauff at the Qatar TotalEnergies Open, shocking the No. 3 seed in 73 minutes on Tuesday.

"Coco is an incredible fighter. We always have incredible matches," Kostyuk said on court. "If you haven't seen our match in Stuttgart, go on YouTube and watch it! I just tried to stick to what I had to do, and I'm very happy it worked out in two sets. Very happy to be through to the Round of 16."

The world No. 21 had won back-to-back matches just once so far this year but pulled off her ninth Top 10 victory—and third over a Top 5 player—to hand Gauff, who last played in Australia where she lost in the quarterfinals, a second straight defeat.

Gauff had begun the year on fire, winning her first nine matches of her season for the third time in her career, becoming only the fifth woman to do so after Margaret Court, Stefanie Graf, Monica Seles, and Serena Williams.

But the American hasn’t won a match since as she lost her very next to Paula Badosa in Melbourne and arrived in Doha looking to recapture the form that took her and Taylor Fritz to the United Cup title in January.

By contrast, Kostyuk was looking for any momentum after losing early in her first two tournaments of the season and lost in the third round of the Australian Open, also to Badosa. Her best win had been against world No. 93 Jule Niemeier, but she had the benefit of playing through a clean first round in Doha over Turkish wild card Zeynep Sonmez.

She also had the boost of having beaten Gauff in the recent past, winning the aforementioned three-setter over the former US Open champion on clay at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix, where she went on to reach the final.

Despite never beating Gauff on hard courts, the Ukrainian youngster nonetheless raced out to the early lead, breaking serve three times to capture the opening set.

Gauff appeared poised to turn the match around when she saved two break points to consolidate a 4-2 lead in the second, but familiar inconsistencies in the serve and forehand reared up as Kostyuk won five of the final six games to surge into the third round.

Waiting for her there will be one of two Polish players, neither of whom are Iga Swiatek: the unseeded Kostyuk will take on either Magda Linette or Magda Freçh.