MIAMI — World No. 4 Coco Gauff is into her first Miami Open quarterfinal, defeating Sorana Cirstea 6-3, 4-6, 6-2 in a back-and-forth contest. She’s now the youngest played on the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz to reach the quarterfinals at every existing 1000 event since the format was introduced in 2009.

Miami: Scores | Draws | Order of play

Gauff awaits the winner of Belinda Bencic and Amanda Anisimova in the quarterfinals of her hometown tournament. 

The theme of the match was break points as neither player was too effective on their serve. Through the first two sets alone, each player had broken the other five times more than the combined nine holds in that same span. However, Gauff pivotally held all her service games in the third set, a deciding factor in the final set.

Both players had some strong winners, on both forehand and backhand, though Gauff had the upper edge winning 46 points when receiving compared to Cirstea’s 36. 

With Cirstea serving a 40-15, down 0-3 in the final set, a fan fell ill in the stands causing a lengthy delay, but ultimately the Romanian did hold with Gauff still up a break at 3-1, keeping the match one break back on serve.

However, Gauff won eight of the nine points in her final two service games to fend Cirstea off. Gauff has now won both meetings between the two, with the previous coming at the 2020 Australian Open.

Another strong suit for the American was her play at the net. During Cirstea’s penultimate service game, Gauff cleverly hit a slice, bringing the Romanian to the net. Cirstea sliced it back, but Gauff anticipated the move and with the open space, hit an easy winner.

In her on-court interview, Gauff, laughing, said she had read a tweet that told her to go to net more, and she agreed.

On the third match point, it was fitting the American broke Cirstea’s serve, finishing the match with a backhand shot at the net, igniting the home crowd that did have some Romanian flags sparsely intertwined.

More to come…

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