{"id":924062,"date":"2026-10-07T13:30:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T13:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/924062\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T13:30:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T13:30:08","slug":"elise-mertens-upsets-coco-gauff-in-china-open-quarterfinals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/924062\/","title":{"rendered":"Elise Mertens upsets Coco Gauff in China Open quarterfinals"},"content":{"rendered":"

BEIJING \u2014 Coco Gauff lost to a player she had beaten in all five of their previous matchups after receiving what she described as an \u201cinsane\u201d amount of racist comments on social media following a controversial point in the preceding round.<\/p>\n

The 19th-ranked Elise Mertens beat the fourth-ranked Gauff 6-3, 6-3 to reach the China Open quarterfinals on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

In Monday\u2019s match against home player Sun Xinran, Gauff stopped a rally after electronic advertising boards lining the court flickered during a point late in the first set.<\/p>\n

Sun appeared about to win the point when Gauff stopped playing. The chair umpire then ordered the point to be replayed.<\/p>\n

\u201cHey everyone, you can dislike me or disagree about what happened without being racist,\u201d Gauff, who is Black, said in a reply on X. \u201cThe amount of racist comments\/dms I\u2019ve received in the last few hours is insane. Lastly, I\u2018m not a cheater or a thief.\u201d<\/p>\n

Against Mertens, Gauff dropped her serve four times.<\/p>\n

“It has been kind of draining, I’m not going to lie,” Gauff told reporters when asked if about the abusive comments, per ESPN<\/a>. “I just turn off my phone and move on. There’s nothing you can do.”<\/p>\n

Mertens reached her first quarterfinal at a WTA 1000 event \u2014 the level just below the Grand Slams \u2014 in five years.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s an incredible player, of course. I knew it was going to be a very tough match,\u201d Mertens said. \u201cBut I had motivation. My coach\/boyfriend, it\u2019s his birthday tomorrow. So this win is dedicated to him and all the work we do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mertens improved to 3-3 against top-10 opponents this year. She also beat defending champion Jasmine Paolini at the Italian Open and current No. 1 Elena Rybakina in the third round of Wimbledon, where she reached the quarterfinal.<\/p>\n

Earlier, Iga Swiatek broke Iva Jovic’s serve twice in the last four games to beat the 18-year-old American 6-1, 6-3.<\/p>\n

Swiatek, a six-time Grand Slam champion who has struggled at times this year, will next play Mertens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BEIJING \u2014 Coco Gauff lost to a player she had beaten in all five of their previous matchups…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":924063,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-924062","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\/924062","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=924062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/924063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=924062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=924062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=924062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}