Melichar, Xu halt surging Gauff, McNally in Cincinnati

NEW YORK, NY, USA - No.2 seeds Nicole Melichar and Xu Yifan mounted an impressive turnaround to halt the surge of unseeded teenagers Coco Gauff and Catherine McNally, coming from a set and a break down to win their Western & Southern Open second round 3-6, 6-3, [10-5] in one hour and 16 minutes.

The result moves Melichar and Xu into their fifth quarterfinal of the year. A brand new partnership in 2020, the American-Chinese duo have got off to an excellent start together, taking Adelaide title in January in just their second tournament together and now drawing on all their experience to quell a duo who are increasingly staking their own claim to belonging at the top of the doubles world.

Indeed, Gauff and McNally dictated play an impressive fashion for a set and a bit. A pair of errant forehands and a double fault made for a shaky start from Gauff, but once she had survived that deciding point, her team barely put a foot wrong for the remainder of the set. Strong serving would be the bedrock of their success, but they would also outdo their doubles specialist opponents in volley exchanges at net more often than not.

It was McNally who came up with the finest shots of the set at the right times, breaking Melichar with a clean backhand return winner down the line for 4-2 and then holding from 0-30 down in the next game with a brilliant forehand pass. Although clutch play from Melichar staved off three set points, two on the Xu serve, yet another service winner from Gauff sealed the fourth.

As another excellent McNally pass captured an immediate break of the Melichar serve at the start of the second set, the all-American duo were in the driver's seat; Gauff was so confident that she even essayed a cheeky fakeout, shaping up to power away a putaway before switching to a delicate dropshot. But a careless double fault from McNally opened the door in the fourth game - and Xu did not hesitate to take her opportunity, slamming a forehand return winner to level at 2-2.

Thereafter, the Chinese player would wrest the status of MVP from McNally, working in perfect tandem with Melichar's power to outfox the younger pair at net as they reeled off six out of seven games from 0-2 down. The eighth game saw McNally broken again, with both teenagers missing volleys on the final two points, and strong serving from Melichar would send the contest into a match tiebreak.

Here, Xu was in her element. A pair of delightful, feathery volleys put her team in the lead first - and although the Washington and Luxembourg champions fought back to level at 4-4, a limp double fault from Gauff into the bottom of the net squandered this momentum. In the closing stages of the match, almost everything Xu touched turned to gold: the 2019 Wimbledon runner-up came up with a marvellous backhand winner at full stretch, a pinpoint lob and, on her first match point, pounded a forehand straight at McNally to wrap up the win.