Coco Gauff is back to winning matches as the young American defeated fellow teenager Linda Noskova to claim a spot in the Cincinnati quarter-finals. This was an extremely entertaining match between two young players who will compete on the Tour for the next ten years. The Czech player Noskova has been in good form recently, including a deep run in Prague. She won a couple of matches here as well, but none of them compared to facing Gauff on her home turf in Cincinnati. The 18-year-old Noskova advanced through the qualifiers and secured notable victories over Liudmila Samsonova and the 9th seed Petra Kvitova, reaching the round of 16 in a WTA 1000 event for the first time in her career.
Gauff has also recently put together some excellent runs. It all began in Washington, where she won the title, but she also performed admirably in Montreal. It was upsetting to lose to eventual champion Pegula, but she made a great comeback here and continued to dominate Noskova. Gauff, entering as the 7th seed, received a first-round bye and made her debut in the second round against Mayar Sherif, securing a convincing victory of 6-2, 6-2.
The match began with the players trading early breaks, which would be a theme throughout the opening set and match. Neither player served very well, nor did they play particularly well, struggling to win service games. In the first set, Gauff was broken four times, but Noskova was broken five times. As a consequence, Gauff won the set 6-4. On the second serve, they were a combined 3/23. Gauff broke Noskova again in the second set as the Czech player struggled with her serve. Gauff controlled her own game and utterly destroyed her opponent down the stretch.
The final score was 6-4 6-0 for the 19-year-old American, who was completely dominant on Noskova’s serve, winning the vast majority of those points. She broke Noskova eight times in this set, allowing her only 13 points on serve throughout.
Gauff advances to the quarterfinals, where she will face Italy’s Jasmine Paolini on Saturday. That’s a great matchup for the Americans. Paolini qualified for the quarter-finals because Elena Rybakina quit with a shoulder injury during their match.
Meanwhile, Aryna Sabalenka made a winning return to Cincinnati as the Belarusian defeated Daria Kasatkina in straight sets 6-3, 6-3. Sabalenka will face Tunisian Ons Jabeur in the quarterfinals on August 19, Saturday.
