Coco Gauff put her tears aside on Thursday evening when she was confronted this year with her first day sessions competition on Saturday US Open, along Magdalena Frech sailing under a sunny sky on Arthur Ashe Stadium and then said she felt ‘lighter’.
To be honest, I tried to tell myself to stay calm. I was so shaky today, but I am glad it was an entertaining competition. When I come here, it feels like home, and you are very involved and I feel grateful, thank you … I don’t think I played so well, but I think I just tried to fight for everything mentally. I know it was a bit of an emotional roller coaster. After Wimbledon I just tried not to think about results anymore and to concentrate on every match. I am happy. It is not a journey that I had imagined, but I am glad I can live it. Naomi Osaka
Driven by her 6-3 6-1 win over the 28th posted post, in which Gauff dominated from the start, the 21-year-old American was clearly removed her early emotional struggles.
“I think I just realized that I don’t want that moment to happen again, such as, at the court,” she said about the tears she struck after 2 early double errors to Donna Vekic. “I don’t want to show, I think, weak in moments. But after the game, I thought, as, maybe it’s not a weakness. It just shows the things that happen in my head and don’t keep it in to the point where I can’t play.
“But I felt with the new perspective, seeing all the support I have received since that moment, just see how proud people are of mine, regardless of how I do it here. Today I felt a lot lighter at the court, and I hope that lightweight for the rest of the time to keep feeling here.”
Gauff went to the last 16 with a comfortable Straight sets victory on Frech after an hour and 13 minutes of applied and efficient effort.
In addition to her emotions, the 3rd seed struggles with changes in her coaching team only a few days before the competition started and wants to improve some technical aspects of her serve.
While her delivery continued to cause her problems in the opening rounds, Gauff let it work smoothly in the Saturday meeting, in which she admitted only 2 breaking points during the entire game and was only broken once, while she won 71% of her points on her first serve.
The 2023 US Open Champion went on early and broke Frech on her first service game before he held a 3-0 lead, and although she was broken in the 5th game to let the post back in the game on 3-3, the home favorite immediately rattled off the next 3 to take the first set.
Gauff then sprinted away with the second, broke Frech in the 3rd game and held up to rise 3-1 before she broke twice to complete a victory, who sends her in a last 16-confrontation against Japanese Naomi Osaka.
The competition is a repeat of their first meeting at the US Open in 2019, when Osaka overwhelmed the then 15-year-old Gauff in straight sets.
“I remember it was a difficult moment for me because it was a hyped-up match,” Gauff said about that defeat. “I think I put way too much pressure on myself to think that at the time I might have a chance to do something, which I absolutely did, but I think it was just that I felt more expectation that I should, maybe, believe.”
Former world no. 1 Naomi Osaka needed 3 sets to get beyond the 15th placed Daria Kasatkina, which set up a last 16 meeting with Coco Gauff at the US Open
© Maddie Meyer/Getty Images
Around the same time when Gauff Frech sent on Ashe, 4-time large champion Naomi Osaka in the 4th round in Louis Armstrong Stadium with a 6-0 4-6 6-3 victory on 15th seed Daria Kasatkina of Australia to continue her best Grand Slam-Run since 2021.
The Japanese dominated early, absorbed a short second set of Wobble and closed the victory after an hour and 44 minutes.
“To be honest, I tried to tell myself that I had to stay calm. I was so shaky today, but I am glad it was an entertaining game,” said Osaka. “When I come here, it feels like home, and you are very involved and I feel grateful, thank you.”
Osaka looked sharp from the start and put pressure on Kasatkina with an early break, donated to her by a double mistakes, before racing in a 3-0 lead.
The delivery of Kasatkina left her in the first set with 8 double mistakes, and only serves 25% of her first in landing, while Osaka moved cool from a bagel in 22 minutes.
The Aussie, born in Russia,, however, forced a decision -maker after a scrappy second set full of breaks, while errors entered both sides, but Kasatkina stabilized enough to level the game.
Osaka, the 23rd seed, regained her calmness in the decision-maker, saved break points with 2 sizzling winners and rose in a 3-1 lead before he closes the game to stay on track for a 3rd US open title.
“I don’t think I played so well, but I think I just tried to fight for everything mentally,” she told reporters. “I know it was a bit of an emotional roller coaster.
“After Wimbledon I just tried not to think about the results anymore and concentrate on every competition. I am happy. It is not a journey I had imagined, but I am glad I live.”
Osaka was once the dominant power in the tennis of women, reached World No 1 and won 4 Grand Slams on hard courts with skills that are well suited for the surface.
She is also inconsistent, even within a match, to destroy an opponent in one set with her strength and control, only to lose both in the next with a scattering of errors.
This year in New York, the Japanese recovers the consistency that brought her to the top of the game, improving her arsenal and skills in a more balanced aggression led by the former coach of Iga Swiatek, Tomasz Wiktorowski.
Osaka does not give away much about what they are working on, but recently said: “I can give you something that is not tennis -related to him. When I didn’t know him, I thought he was very scary because he is very long and he did not smile.
“But now that we are working together, I see that he often laughs. He has a very friendly smile, and it is very nice. And that is my little nice fact about Tomasz.”
Karolina Muchova used her all-round competition to survive fellow Czech Linda Noskova in the stands
© Matthew Stockman/Getty images
In the meantime, starting with the schedule in the stands, Karolina Muchova, a double US open semi-finalist, her younger countryman, Linda Noskova, has passed into an all-czech match that also went the distance.
Muchova has an All-Court game and she used her All-Court Gile to subdue Noskova, 6-7 (5) 6-4 6-2, after 2 hours and 26 minutes of fascinating game.
“I like to play in New York. I love the city, the people, the energy, everything about it,” Muchova then said in court. “I played all three games very close. I am happy that I am still standing and I will fight to reach another round.”
For tennis economists it is not much better than Muchova, who has the versatility to exchange power shots, change pace with slices and touch, or just charge the net to end with a volley with its classic throw-back style.
The 20-year-old Noskova, who takes the modern route to her victories, with the help of full power, mainly camped on the basic line, although she has some versatility in her game, announced herself on the Tour in 2024 with a quarter-final Run in Melbourne with a victory over Swiatek.
Noskova and Muchova played together double at the Olympic Games of Paris, represented the Czech Republic and simply lacked a bronze medal, but they had never confronted each other in a Singles match at tour level.
The 29-year-old Muchova has struggled with injuries and missed a large part of the Tour this year because of the left wrist operation, but she finds her pass, and in the first set racing to a 3-0 lead before Noskova placed herself on the scoreboard with 1 of the 21 winners compared to 16 for her veteran opponent.
In the 8th game, Noskova Muchova denied to serve the set before the couple traded service breaks on the way to a tiebreak, who took the younger Czeches on her 2nd setpoint when the backhand of the no. 11 seed sailed long.
Noskova avoided 3 breaking points in the 3rd game, and another in the 5th, of the second set, while Muchova blinded for serve, and 81% of the first -service points won and 88% of the second serve points to level the match.
Then she then took total control in the decision maker, with her liquid court coverage and an all-Court game on a spectacular display.
‘[Linda] Is such a nice girl. It is never fun to play a friend, but in tennis it is what it is, “said Muchova.” It is a shame that we had to play in the third round, but I am happy that I have demanded today. “
Muchova, the French Open finalist from 2023, makes her 8th performance at the US Open and has now survived her 3rd consecutive 3rd set of struggle, who previously eliminated fan favorite Venus Williams and Romanian Sorana Cirstea.
27th Seed Marta Kostyuk also had to come from a set down to beat Diane Parry, and will meet Karolina Muchova for a place in the quarterfinals on Monday
© Ishika Samant/Getty images
The Czech No. 1, currently 13 in the world, looks at a 3rd semifinal performance, but must first navigate her way along the Marta Kastyuk van Ukraine, which was taken the distance in the 2nd game on Court 5 on Saturday afternoon.
Kostyuk, the no. 27 Seed, reached the last 16 for the first time by the stubborn challenge of ungusted French wife Diane Parry, 3-6 6-4 6-2, to return to a clear and sunny day 7.
The best show of the Ukrainian in a Grand Slam was last year as a quarter -final at the Australian Open, but so far she was not beyond the 3rd round in 5 previous performances in New York.
Kostyuk’s aggressive net hasts and strong grounda’s are well suited for the meadow hard courts, and against Parry she made 30 winners and won 23 of 28 points on the net for a sizzling 82%.
It is no surprise that her best results during her career came to hard courts, after she had won her lonely WTA-Singles title in Austin in 2023, next to her run to the quarterfinals of Melbourne, while Kostyuk reached the 4th round in Indian Wells and Miami with a run.
After splitting sets into a tightly disputed and voltage match with Parry on Saturday, Kostyuk found another equipment to dominate the decision maker, in which the 23-year-old won 12 of the first 14 points to sprint to the finish line.
After he had loved to start from the last set, Kostyuk broke again before he took an impressive 3-0 lead, and she raised her career record against Parry to 3-0 after the forehand of the French woman had found the net at the first match point, causing the Ukrainian to buried her face.
Parry offered to become the first French wife since Caroline Garcia in 2022 to reach the last 16 or better in Flushing Meadows, but with Garcia Court-Side watching her game slowly crumbled, causing 30 errors under Kostyuk’s constant pressure.
Next for the Ukrainian is the first time that he is Muchova, the experienced 2-time US Open Semi-Finalist, on Monday.
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