Coco Gauff defeated Caroline Wozniacki on Sunday to become the first American teenager since Serena Williams in 2001 to advance to consecutive quarterfinals at the U.S. Open in New York.
The sixth seed, Gauff eliminated wild-card Wozniacki, the former world No. 1 from Denmark, 6-3, 3-6, 6-1. Gauff will go on to face No. 20 seed Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia, who upset defending champion Iga Swiatek, the top seed from Poland, 3-6, 6-3, 6-1, in 1 hour, 48 minutes late Sunday night.
The earlier fourth-round match lasted two hours between the 19-year-old star in Gauff against Wozniacki, a 33-year-old mother of two children who recently came out of retirement.
“Caroline’s back — it’s like she’s never left,” Gauff said in her on-court interview. “She’s been an inspiration growing up. She definitely gets to a lot of balls. Sometimes I felt like I was playing myself.
“I knew I had to be aggressive today. In some moments I missed, but I was happy I was able to get back and focus.”
Gauff had a 5-1 edge in aces, but also twice as many double faults, 4-2. She hit 33 winners to overcome 44 unforced errors. Wozniacki had 14 winners and 27 unforced errors.
Gauff won five of seven break points, to 3-for-10 for Wozniacki.
Ostapenko is 1-1 in head-to-head meetings with Gauff and is now 4-0 against Swiatek. With Sunday’s loss, Swiatek will lose the No. 1 spot in the world rankings to Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus after holding the post for 75 weeks.
Ostapenko, the only player to face Swiatek multiple times at tour level without a loss, had more aces, 7-3, and more winners, 31-18. She converted seven of 10 break points to four of seven for Swiatek.
“I always expect a tough battle against Iga,” Ostapenko said. “She’s won many Slams and she plays very consistent. I just went on court and I had to play aggressive because that’s what she doesn’t really like.”
Also Sunday, No. 10 seed Karolina Muchova of the Czech Republic battled past China’s Xinyu Wang 6-3, 5-7, 6-1 to reach the quarterfinals for the first time.
Muchova converted 9 of 13 break-point opportunities and had a 32-21 edge in total winners against Wang. She won 13 of 16 first-service points in the decisive third set to break away.
“I’m really glad I finished it and it’s over,” Muchova said in her on-court interview. “In the third set, I came to my game, to slice it more and change the rhythm — it was the key, actually.”
Muchova will face Romania’s Sorana Cirstea, the No. 30 seed, in the quarters. Cirstea swept past No. 15 seed Belinda Bencic of Switzerland 6-3, 6-3 on Sunday.
Cirstea smashed five aces and committed just one double fault, while Bencic had five double faults without an ace. Cirstea capitalized on Bencic’s 32 unforced errors while making just 14 herself.
–Field Level Media
