Coco Gauff quickly went up a break on Sunday evening at Indian Wells, then she began to favor her left arm and her lead quickly came unraveled.
The 21-year-old, who is the top seeded American at this year’s BNP Paribas Open, was forced to withdraw in the second set, pushing 18-year-old sensation Alex Eala of the Philippines into the Round of 16.
It was just the second time in her career that Gauff has withdrawn from a match. The last time was in 2022 in Cincinnati.
“It felt like a firework was going off inside of my arm, and then my whole arm felt like it was on fire,” Gauff said. We’re going to figure out what it is tomorrow, but based off the feeling, being told that it’s probably something nerve-related.
“Never had anything like this before, never felt anything, a sensation like this before,” Gauff added. “And then as the match played, it got progressively worse, even when I wasn’t using my arm on shots that I wasn’t even using my left arm for. It was a scary feeling.”
Eala, who has attracted a massive crowd of followers at Indian Wells, had won the first set, 6-2, and was leading the second set, 2-0, before Gauff withdrew. It was Eala’s first career match on Stadium Court at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden.
Eala will move on to play Linda Nosková of Croatia on Tuesday.
“No one likes winning like that, and no one likes losing like that,” Eala said. “Nevertheless, I’m really happy with how I played. I’m really happy with my performance, and I hope I can make the best out of the momentum.”
Gauff was leading 2-1 in the first set before the arm injury. Eala won the last five games to close out the set, then the first two of the second set before Gauff opted not to continue.
“We’re going tomorrow to get an MRI and to see what’s going on,” Gauff said. “Good news is they don’t think it’s going to be like a long-term type of situation, so I should be fine for Miami. We’ve just got to figure out exactly what it is and, I guess, how to prevent it in the future.”
Eala’s first match, on Stadium 3 on Friday, was packed. The line to get to the general admission seating was more than 100 people long midway through the match.
On Sunday, Eala spent much of her post-match interview on the court thanking her parents and those who’ve helped her get to this point in her career so far. She seemed to really take in the moment and wasn’t overlooking how special it was to advance at such a big tournament.
“I do my best to be humble and to keep my feet on the ground because I am surrounding by so many amazing players,” she said. “Tennis is a really humbling sport because you really learn how to lose and learn to be self-aware.”
Gauff said after the match that she hated to withdraw because she didn’t want to take away from the way Eala was playing. She didn’t want her injury to be the story instead of how well Eala was playing.
“She was playing great tennis, and I don’t want to take anything away from the way that she was playing,” Gauff said. “I’d rather finish the match and lose 6-0. But at that point I just felt that because the pain was getting worse and I didn’t know what was going on, I just felt it was better to stop. But I think she’s going to have a great tournament.”
[This story has been updated to add new information.]
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Alexandra Eala moves on after injury forces Coco Gauff to withdraw at Indian Wells
Reporting by Andrew John, Palm Springs Desert Sun / Palm Springs Desert Sun
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
