Coco Gauff continued her mastery over Russian teen Mirra Andreeva and returned to the Italian Open semifinals with a 6-4, 7-6 (5) victory on Wednesday in Rome.
The fourth-seeded American’s next opponent will be No. 8 seed Qinwen Zheng of China, who ousted top-seeded Aryna Sabalenka 6-4, 6-3.
The other semifinal at the WTA 1000 clay-court tournament will feature sixth-seeded Italian Jasmine Paolini and unseeded American Peyton Stearns, who won their quarterfinal matches Tuesday.
Gauff, 21, improved to 4-0 against the 18-year-old Andreeva and raised her career record to 11-1 against players younger than her.
“Honestly I don’t think about the head-to-head so much,” Gauff said after finishing her quarterfinal win in 1 hour and 42 minutes. “Especially when you’re playing someone younger, you know that they can improve so much in a little bit of time.
“I mean, I think about my game compared to when I was her age to now, it’s a lot different. At the same time when I go on court, I treat each match like a new match and expect her to be better than the last time we played.”
Gauff, who overcame a 3-2 deficit in the second set, became the youngest three-time semifinalist (2021, 2024) in the Italian capital since Martina Hingis in 1999.
The decisive tiebreak went back and forth, including a brilliant drop shot by the Russian to make it 5-5, before a couple of errant backhands sealed Andreeva’s fate.
“At the end, my defense, it was tough,” Gauff said. “We were both tight in the tiebreaker, it was whoever could make the last ball. Today some points weren’t my best, but I still managed to be successful.”
Zheng, 22, reached the final four in Rome for the first time after quarterfinal exits in 2023 and 2024. She struck four aces and won 82 percent (28 of 34) of her first-service points in the 97-minute win over World No. 1 Sabalenka.
Zheng saved all five break points and converted three of her 10 break chances, including the deciding game on her second match point.
Tensions got the best of Sabalenka early in the second set when she yelled at a spectator to “shut the (expletive) up,” prompting a warning from the chair umpire for an audible obscenity.
Zheng defeated Sabalenka for the first time in seven meetings and reached her first semifinal of the season.
“It was not easy for me because at the beginning of the year I got some struggle with my arm,” Zheng, the Paris Olympics gold medalist, told Sky Sports after the match. “So right now I’m just perfectly in shape and trying to play better tennis all the time.”
–Field Level Media
