LONDON \u2014 There\u2019s no panic in Coco Gauff.<\/p>\n
Down a set after untimely double-faults, Gauff rallied past Jessica Pegula 4-6, 6-3, 6-3 on Tuesday to reach the\u00a0Wimbledon\u00a0semifinals for the first time.<\/p>\n
The two-time major champion raised her arms in the air after Pegula sent a weak backhand into the net on the first match point in an all-American quarterfinal on Centre Court.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been going three sets almost every match. I feel like when you have that faith in yourself as a competitor, when the match goes a distance, you know when you lose one set, you\u2019re not panicking,\u201d Gauff said in an on-court interview.<\/p>\n
With the victory, the 22-year-old Gauff became the youngest player to reach the semifinals at all four Grand Slams since\u00a0Maria Sharapova, who completed the feat at the 2007 French Open.<\/p>\n
Gauff will face either\u00a0Naomi Osaka\u00a0or Karolina Muchova for a spot in Saturday\u2019s final.<\/p>\n
In Gauff’s six previous appearances at the All England Club, she had never gotten past the fourth round. But perhaps the experience at the grass-court major is starting to pay off.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think after seven years playing this tournament, it\u2019s finally the first time I can walk on Centre Court and I didn\u2019t feel nervous,\u201d she said. \u201cSo I don\u2019t know if I\u2019m becoming a vet.\u201d<\/p>\n
The \u201cvet\u201d was undone by early double-faults, though, putting herself in a hole to start the match. She led 40-0 right away but lost the next five points \u2014 including two on double-faults \u2014 to go down 1-0. After breaking Pegula in the sixth game, Gauff was immediately broken to love with two more double-faults.<\/p>\n
Gauff called the last two sets \u201creally great tennis.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJess’ ball is so flat and low. So I think I just needed to address that … be in there in the rallies and just play the tennis that I wanted to play. And I think I started to land more first serves in the court,\u201d said Gauff, who cranked up one serve to 126 mph in the third game of the second set. \u201cSo I think that also helped and just trusting my shots.\u201d<\/p>\n
On No. 1 Court, defending champion Jannik Sinner kept his title defence on track by beating Jan-Lennard Struff 7-5, 7-6 (4), 6-3 to advance to the semifinals.<\/p>\n
The top-ranked Sinner continues to put his French Open meltdown behind him. He\u00a0needed five sets\u00a0to get past 50th-ranked Miomir Kecmanovic in the first round, but since then they’ve been straight-set victories, allowing the 24-year-old Italian to avoid marathon sessions.<\/p>\n
Sinner will next face either seven-time Wimbledon singles champion Novak Djokovic or third-seeded Felix Auger-Aliassime. The men’s final is on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Under a sunny sky, the early afternoon matches started with the temperature at 29 Celsius degrees (84 Fahrenheit) and expected to rise to 31 C (88 F).<\/p>\n
Sinner, who lost in the second round at the French Open amid a\u00a0heat wave in Paris, used an ice towel around his neck on changeovers.<\/p>\n
Early in her match, Gauff asked the chair umpire: \u201cDo you guys have an ice pack?\u201d The American dabbed what appeared to be a blue ice pack to her cheeks and top of her thighs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON \u2014 There\u2019s no panic in Coco Gauff. Down a set after untimely double-faults, Gauff rallied past Jessica…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":786679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-786678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=786678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/786679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=786678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=786678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=786678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}