American 18-year-old Coco Gauff found the poise to stall a fierce fightback from four-time major winner Naomi Osaka on Thursday, defeating the former world No.1 6-4, 6-4 to reach the Silicon Valley Classic quarter finals. It was the fourth meeting between Japan’s Osaka and Gauff, who finished runner-up in her maiden grand slam final at this year’s French Open, with the American levelling the head-to-head record at 2-2.
“Even though I was up 5-1, 40-0 I knew I didn’t have the match in the bag yet and she proved that,” Gauff said. “When you play Naomi she can play lights out tennis. I wasn’t too mad. I was just like, eventually it’ll calm down and if it doesn’t calm down then it’s probably not my day.
“I could have easily folded in those couple of double-faults and match points that I lost. But I kept telling myself, ‘another point, another chance’... I was trying to sing along to the song to get me out of the match.”
Next up for Gauff, who is third behind top-ranked Iga Swiatek and Ons Jabeur in the Race to the WTA Finals leaderboard, will be Spaniard Paula Badosa.
Nadal withdraws
Rafael Nadal withdrew from the upcoming hard-court tournament in Montreal because of the abdominal injury that caused him to pull out of Wimbledon ahead of the semifinals. The Spaniard had been 19-0 in grand slam matches this year when he decided the injury was too much at Wimbledon. Nadal is a five-time champion in Montreal. “I have been practicing for a while now... However, yesterday, after my normal practice, I felt a slight bother… and today it was still there,” Nadal said in a statement.
Nadal was then advised by his doctors and support staff to pull out. Djokovic withdrew from the Montreal tournament on Thursday because he is not vaccinated against Covid-19. Canada does not allow unvaccinated people to enter the country.
(Written with inputs from Reuters)