Gauff/McNally fall short of reaching Miami Open doubles finals

Coco Gauff and Caty McNally were in action today but they failed to secure the Miami Open final losing to Mertens and Kudermetova 4-6 6-3 2-10.

Gauff and McNally have been playing doubles for a while now and while the duo is very exciting drawing large crowds, especially in North America they can't get the big break they are hoping for. They had a pretty decent chance today against Mertens and Kudermetova but ultimately they fell short. Gauff and her partner lost the first set quite naively.

They came into the match a bit disjointed losing their opening service game and giving their opponents the crucial break. Both teams settled after that and neither team was able to create much pressure on return. It was a disappointing result for the Americans as they generally played rather well. Mertens and Kudermetova are some of the best doubles players in the world and their experience showed.

The 2nd set followed the first set in the sense that both teams were quite confident on serve. Gauff and McNally had some windows when Mertens or Kudermetova missed their first serve but generally there was no breakthrough in sight. It came late in the set at 4-3 when a poor game from Mertens and Kudermetova gave the Americans a golden chance. They took it 6-3.

The match tiebreak did not live up to the expected hype as the Americans got completely outplayed. It was like their opponents flipper into a higher gear and the match was quickly over. 10-2 was the score for the Belgian/Russian combo.