Coco Gauff survived late-match drama to keep her US Open title defence alive with a 3-6, 6-3, 6-3 victory over Elina Svitolina yesterday.
Gauff’s third-set surge had carried her to a 5-2 lead and triple match point, but she delivered a pair of double faults and Svitolina saved another with a blazing backhand on the way to a break.
But Gauff broke Svitolina at love in the next game to lock up the win.
In a tense, physical encounter on Arthur Ashe Stadium, Gauff regrouped after a rocky end to the first set saw Svitolina break at love for a 5-3 lead and pocket the opener with a love game.
Gauff gained her first break of the match on her fourth opportunity for a 4-2 lead in the second and held on to force the third.
“I knew today was going to be a tough match - she’s a fighter,” Gauff said, saying more aggression on her forehand and fewer backhand errors helped her turn things around.
Spain’s Paula Badosa had to fight back for a 4-6, 6-1, 7-6 (10/8) victory over Romanian qualifier Elena-Gabriela Ruse, who had toppled Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova in the second round.
In another clash, China’s Zheng Qinwen shook off slow starts in the opening two rounds of the US Open and took down unseeded German Jule Niemeier 6-2 6-1 at the US Open yesterday.
The Olympic gold medallist and 7th seed fired off eight aces and seized five break points on the Grandstand hard court in her first straight-sets victory of the year’s final major.
Niemeier, nursing a foot injury, committed five double faults and held serve in just three games of the match that wrapped up quickly in an hour and 21 minutes.
Zheng was sharp from the start, blasting two aces to open the second game and breaking Niemeier’s serve in the fifth to seize control of the match and energize scores of Chinese chanting “jiayou” from the stands.
A cross-court forehand blast captured a second service break for the 2024 Australian Open runner-up as Niemeier’s forehand return found the net. Zheng grabbed seven straight points to open the second set and cruised to the win, avenging a third-round loss to the German at her first US Open in 2022 and setting up a fourth-round clash with either Donna Vekic or Peyton Stearns, who play later on Friday.
“Finally, it’s the first match I won in two sets... It’s not (been) easy for me to play after Olympic Games,” said Zheng, who has noted previous struggles with focus after deep tournament runs.
“I’m starting to find my tennis and I start to play better and better.”
The enthusiastic support from Chinese fans also helped. “Jiayou, means ‘come on’ in English... In Chinese, saying jiayou to me, I feel a lot of energy and I feel it really brings me up.”
Meanwhile Naomi Osaka’s return to the US Open ended in the second round, but the two time champion said she felt “grateful” as she departed in the wake of a straight-sets loss to Karolina Muchova.
“It was really fun,” Osaka said after falling 6-3, 7-6 (7/5) to the 52nd-ranked Czech under the lights on Arthur Ashe Stadium. “I felt very grateful that there were so many people cheering. I missed it a lot.”
