Coco Gauff defeated her US Open opponent Zhang Shuai and reached the quarterfinals of the tournament for the first time.
Coco Gauff raised a fist, then wagged her right index finger, responding to, and riling up, even more, a loud-louder-loudest Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd that was standing and screaming.
Gauff and her fans were reacting excitedly to quite a point, one in which the 18-year-old Floridian raced to her right for a defensive forehand, then changed directions to sprint and slide into a backhand that drew a netted volley from Zhang. Just four points later, Gauff was a quarterfinalist at Flushing Meadows.
Gauff, the French Open runner-up in June, came back in each set to beat China's Zhang 7-5, 7-5 on Sunday to become the youngest American to make it this far at the U.S. Open since Melanie Oudin was 17 in 2009.
Gauff has a career-high ranking of world No. 11 in singles and reached it on July 11, 2022. She achieved a ranking of world No. 1 in doubles on August 15, 2022. Gauff won her first WTA Tour singles title at the 2019 Linz Open aged 15, making her the youngest singles title-holder on the Tour since 2004.
She has won two WTA Tour singles titles and five doubles titles, three partnering with Caty McNally and two with Jessica Pegula. Gauff rose to prominence with a win over Venus Williams in the opening round at Wimbledon 2019.
“Here, I can't hear myself scream. Makes me want to do it more. I think I'm feeding off the momentum a lot. I enjoy it,” said No. 12 seed Gauff.
“New York is bringing out a side of me that I haven't had since I was 15, so it's nice.”
Gauff will next face Caroline Garcia of France on Tuesday.
(Inputs from PTI)
