Frances Tiafoe and Brandon Nakashima set up one all-American men\u2019s semifinal, Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula also win.<\/p>\n
Published On 22 Aug 202622 Aug 2026<\/p>\n
Brandon Nakashima continued his red-hot pace, knocking out sixth-seeded Taylor Fritz 7-6 (11\/9), 4-6, 6-3 to reach the ATP-WTA Cincinnati Masters semifinals.<\/p>\n
Unseeded Czech Sara Bejlek also advanced late Friday, backing up her stunning victory over world number one Aryna Sabalenka with a 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (7\/5) quarterfinal win over Madison Keys.<\/p>\n
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Bejlek, 20, booked a semifinal showdown with fourth-seeded American Coco Gauff, who powered to a 6-2, 6-2 victory over 10th-seeded Ukrainian Marta Kostyuk.<\/p>\n
Nakashima lined up an all-American men\u2019s semi against Frances Tiafoe, who out-lasted Italian Lorenzo Musetti 7-6 (7\/2) 7-5.<\/p>\n
Nakashima began his post-Wimbledon hard court run with a Washington semifinal \u2013 which he lost to Fritz \u2013 a run to the final in the Montreal Masters and now his best showing at Cincinnati, all with the US Open start barely more than a week away.<\/p>\n
Nakashima withstood 22 aces from Fritz \u2013 who also bashed 31 unforced errors.<\/p>\n
Nakashima trailed by a break in the third set but broke back to knot it at 3-3 and broke again for a 5-3 lead, out-hitting the powerful Fritz and converting his first match point with a forehand winner.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve gotten a lot of confidence over the summer,\u201d Nakashima said. \u201cIn the final set I trusted my game, I\u2019m proud with how I ended the match.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tiafoe needed four match points to get past Musetti in a match played at a slow but intense pace.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a hell of a player; he makes you beat him \u2013 and that\u2019s what I did,\u201d said Tiafoe, who was broken the first time he served for the match but won the next two games. \u201cEach match is its own story. I just go out and compete as hard as I can.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bejlek got off to a slow start against big-hitting Keys, a former Australian Open champion and the 2019 winner in Cincinnati.<\/p>\n
Bejlek trailed 0-3 on the way to dropping the first set but rode a wave of momentum shifts into the final four.<\/p>\n
The Czech broke first in the third set only for Keys to battle back and force the tiebreaker, in which Bejlek rallied from 4-2 down on the way to a victory capped by a stinging winner down the line on match point.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just kept believing in the match no matter what,\u201d said Bejlek, who won her first WTA title in Abu Dhabi in February as a qualifier.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believed much more than ever; it was always in my head.\u201d<\/p>\n
After a solid first set, the 24th-ranked Keys broke in the third game of the second, but Bejlek, ranked 35th, broke back in the sixth and held for a 4-3 lead.<\/p>\n
Keys answered with a love game, but Bejlek turned the tables two games later to force the third.<\/p>\n
Two-time Grand Slam winner Gauff was dialled in from the start against Kostyuk, breaking the 10th seed six times on the way to victory in 70 minutes.<\/p>\n
Kostyuk, who had been 5-0 in quarterfinals this year, managed one break in each set, but they were minor hiccups for Gauff, who lost just five points behind her first serve.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery match is getting better for me,\u201d Gauff said. \u201cI\u2019m being more decisive, my serve is improving and it is getting more and more rare for me to be broken.\u201d<\/p>\n
She was expecting a challenge from the rising Bejlek.<\/p>\n
\u201cSara is a great player,\u201d Gauff said. \u201cI watched her win the title in Abu Dhabi. She\u2019s so athletic and fast, but she makes you earn every point.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Frances Tiafoe and Brandon Nakashima set up one all-American men\u2019s semifinal, Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula also win.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":864653,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,44,588,85,747,1055,6075],"class_list":["post-864652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-united-states","tag-us-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=864652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/864653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=864652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=864652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=864652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}