South Florida’s Coco Gauff is on her way to the fourth round of the Miami Open after defeating Shuai Zhang in straight sets 7-6, 7-5 in Miami Gardens.
This is the farthest Gauff has advanced at the tournament after defeats in the second round on two previous entries. Zhang is the second Chinese to fall to the American in as many matches, at the 2022 Miami Open. In her first match, she got past Qiang Wang 7-5, 6-4.
This match was tighter than her second-round encounter, and Gauff had to work harder for victory. She started shaky in the first set and was quickly down 3-5 to Zhang, who failed to convert two set points on her serve.
Trailing 5-6, Gauff rallied to level the games before taking the tie-breaker 7-1 with some powerful groundstrokes.
The second set didn’t start well for the teenager either. She lost serve in game one, but with a very loud home crowd behind her, she broke Zhang the next game and leveled the contest. Both players played some very attacking shots in the next two games, and the score was level at two games as both held serve.
Zhang came back from 40:0 to break Gauff’s serve in game five and took the lead 3:2. She then held serve to increase her lead 4:2, but a determined Gauff pulled one back on her serve to make it three games to four.
Gauff then leveled the contest four a-piece before forcing three errors from Zhang to go up 40:0 in the 9th and eventually taking a 5-4 lead.
Gauff needed to break serve to win the match, and the crowd was behind her again with applause and encouragement.
After Zhang failed to execute a simple volley on her 1st serve return, Gauff powered a beautiful backhand to the left of her opponent to go up 30. However, the Chinese was not about to give up without a fight and won the following four points to level the games at five.
Gauff strong backhand was dominant in the next two games. She took the 11th game and was again one away from match victory.
Zhang went 15:0 but lost the next two points before leveling at 30:30. Gauff took the next, and the crowd went wild with match point in sight.
The American made a soft return from Zhang’s serve, but the Chinese over-hit long to send home girl Coco Gauff into the round of 16 for the first time.
After the game, Gauff conceded that: “I wasn’t playing my best in some moments.” She thanked the large crowd for coming out and supporting her.
Her next game will be against likely world number one and the number two seed Iga Swiatek of Poland.
