Marta Kostyuk was 14 years old when she won the Australian Open junior title.

“I mean, who does that, right?” her coach, Sandra Zaniewska, told wtatennis.com earlier this year. “I think there were a lot of expectations that were put on her, not only by the world but also herself at a very young age that maybe she did not meet.

“Because when you win Australia juniors you probably think next year you’re going to win seniors. And then it doesn’t happen and you ask yourself, `Am I not a good player anymore?’ So she’s been through a lot of this. Now is probably the time when it settles a little bit more, right?”

Right.

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On Tuesday, Kostyuk stunned the No. 3-seeded Coco Gauff with a forceful 6-2, 7-5 victory at the Qatar TotalEnergies Open. The 22-year-old from Ukraine will play a third-round match against Magda Linette.

Serving to reach a second-set tiebreak, Gauff committed back-to-back double faults, her sixth and seventh of the match, to give Kostyuk two match points. She converted the second when Gauff’s backhand found the net.

Kostyuk had lost all three previous matches to Gauff on hard courts; Gauff was the highest-ranked player she’s ever beaten on this surface.

“Coco is an incredible fighter,” Kostyuk said in her on-court interview. “We always have incredible matches. I tried to stick to what I had to do. I’m very happy it worked out in two sets.”

Gauff finished with 39 unforced errors and only eight winners, marking her third straight loss in Doha. She fell in her opener last year to Katerina Siniakova and exited in the quarterfinals in 2022 and 2023.

Still, heading into her second-round match against Kostyuk, the 20-year-old American had won 17 straight against opponents ranked outside the Top 20.

Kostyuk, currently No. 21 in the PIF WTA Rankings, isn’t a classic Top 20 outsider. She began her career by losing 14 straight matches against Top 10 players -- she's 9-6 since.

She has steadily risen through the ranks. She saw her ranking soar as high as No. 16 last year and finished at No. 18. Kostyuk, a two-time finalist last year, has created all kinds of expectations and this win certainly will whet appetites for even more.

The first set was a microcosm of Gauff’s occasional struggles in the opening set. She won fewer than half her first-serve points and was broken three times. There were three double faults and 19 unforced errors, most of them on the forehand side.

Gauff came out for the second set with greater intensity -- and accuracy. Her serve was better and her groundstrokes more precise. She broke Kostyuk in the third game and saved two set points at 3-2 to maintain that margin.

But more errors from Gauff allowed Kostyuk to break through to level that match at 4-all. It stayed that way until Kostyuk broke through at the end.

Back in January, Zaniewska raved about Kostyuk’s game:

“The thing about Marta is she has all the possibilities, she can hit any shot,” Zaniewska said. “She can really play so many different game styles, it’s just a matter of choosing. It took a little while. At the beginning she was confused -- but she was committed. Eventually it clicked.”

Kostyuk’s difficulty has come in being too hard on herself. At 22 -- the age of a typical college senior -- perhaps she’s learning to ease up.

“There is more space, to grow and go through these things in a calmer way,” Zaniewska said. “It was chaotic earlier on. There was a lot of attention, which is difficult for any child. It’s listening with compassion and understanding to the player -- listening, actually, to this person.

“These are challenges everyone deals with.”

Challenges, based on the spectacular early returns in Doha, that Kostyuk seems poised to overcome.