Gauff advances to Berlin quarterfinal meeting with Pliskova
Coco Gauff View Profile is through to the quarterfinals at a grass-court event for the first time in her career in Berlin. Awaiting her? Reigning Wimbledon finalist Karolina Pliskova.
To reach her latest career milestone, Roland Garros finalist Gauff earned a 6-0, 6-4 win over Chinese qualifier Wang Xinyu, needing just 63 minutes to dispatch the World No.76.
Match management: Gauff won the first seven games of the match, but needed to come from a break down in the second set. Wang broke her serve for the first time at 1-1, but Gauff won five of the last six games of the match.
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What's to come: Gauff's best prior result on grass was what introduced her to the world: a last 16 showing at Wimbledon in 2019 at the age of 15. Earlier this year, Pliskova won the first-ever meeting between the two—a 5-7, 6-3, 6-2 first round match at the Mutua Madrid Open.
Some of that @Money23Green defense...
— wta (@WTA) June 16, 2022
Followed by the @StephenCurry30 dagger! 🗡@CocoGauff | #bett1open pic.twitter.com/2yPNRNhNjr
Kudermetova regroups to oust defending champion
To close out Thursday's slate of play, Veronika Kudermetova View Profile sealed the final quarterfinal berth with a 6-3. 6-7(5), 6-1 win over defending champion Liudmila Samsonova View Profile . After coming from 6-2, 5-2 down to defeat Aryna Sabalenka View Profile in Round 1, Kudermetova responded admirably to the reverse when it was Samsonova who rallied from a big deficit.
Match management: Kudermetova led the match, 6-3, 4-0, and failed to convert on a match point in the 10th game of the second set. Samsonova, who won the title as a qualifier 12 months ago, sent the match the distance on her fifth set point, barely hanging on after opening up a 6-1 lead in the tiebreak. However, Kudermetova started strongly to dominate the decider; she crucially saved five break points serving at 2-0, and sealed the win in 2 hours, 9 minutes.
Words from the winner: "I started to play really slow. I gave her a lot of chances and I started to do a lot of mistakes," Kudermetova said. "This surface, you need to play aggressive. If you start to slow down, you'll lose. ... [in the third set], I started to play more inside the court; if I had chances, I started to play more aggressive."
Kudermetova, in form on grass this summer after reaching the semifinals of the Libema Open last week, will next face No.8 seed Belinda Bencic View Profile .
