French Open: Iga Swiatek, the world’s top player, defeated Coco Gauff on Wednesday and continued her perfect record in doing so to advance to the French Open semifinals.
In their penultimate matchup a year prior, Gauff won just four games, and in their previous six meetings, the American had lost all six sets.
Even though Gauff lost to the first seed by scores of 6-4, 6-2, the statistic still stands, and she will feel she might have performed better.
Swiatek said: “I haven’t spent much time on the court so I’m happy that today was a tighter match. In five matches, she has only dropped 15 games.”
In a departure from last year’s final, Gauff tested Swiatek with high, slower balls to her backhand while attempting to prevent the top seed from settling into a pattern.
Gauff immediately recovered an early break, which worked to a point, but Swiatek raised her game to seal the set with an outstanding returning game.
Gauff’s huge chance came in the third game of the second set when she generated three break opportunities, the third coming after slamming a point-blank backhand at Swiatek at the net, sending the Pole to the clay as she attempted to escape it.
Gauff quickly expressed regret, but Swiatek ultimately had the last laugh since the American missed all of her open shots.
And it would turn out to be the final opportunity, as the twice-victorious player won four straight games to secure her place in the semifinals.
Toby Haddad Maia became the first Brazilian woman to play in the semi-finals at Roland Garros during the open era by rallying from a set down to upset Ons Jabeur earlier.
The 14th seed once again had work to do after dropping the opening set against seventh seed Jabeur after fighting for over four hours to defeat Sara Sorribes Tormo in the fourth round.
Haddad Maia won the tie-break after a very close second period, and the Brazilian dominated the final period to win 3-6 7-6 (7-5) 6-1.
For tennis live score, tennis championship, all tennis news, tennis daily score, tennis tournament, live tennis update, tennis update, tennis update today and other tennis news follow Livematchupdates.com.
