{"id":205424,"date":"2026-03-25T12:53:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T12:53:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/205424\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T12:53:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T12:53:11","slug":"gauff-cruises-into-miami-open-semifinals-with-win-over-bencic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/205424\/","title":{"rendered":"Gauff cruises into Miami Open semifinals with win over Bencic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text text--small text--normal text--primary\">Published:\u00a0March 25, 2026 at 8:07 AM<\/p>\n<p>lead-art-block.fullscreen-enterExpand<img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/AN3ST43BUFBLFCTL4USWWGE67A.jpg\"  width=\"1280\" height=\"720\"\/>WPLG <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">MIAMI GARDENS, Fla.  \u2014 South Florida native and tennis star Coco Gauff is proving once again she\u2019s tough to bet against.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Despite dealing with nagging injuries, Gauff powered her way into the quarterfinals of the Miami Open with a strong performance Tuesday night.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Gauff split the first two sets before taking control in the decider against Belinda Bencic, using sharp shot-making and steady play to pull away. She sealed the victory with a well-placed final point to close out the match.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The 22-year-old two-time Grand Slam champion and world No. 4 battled through a tight, back-and-forth match, bouncing back after dropping a break of serve in the third set by winning four straight games to secure a 6-3, 1-6, 6-3 victory over Bencic in two hours and 15 minutes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">With the win, Gauff becomes the youngest American to reach the women\u2019s singles semifinals at the tournament since Serena Williams did so in 2004 \u2014 the year Gauff was born.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">If she advances to the final, Gauff would move ahead of Iga Swiatek and climb to No. 3 in the WTA rankings next week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The win moves Gauff one step closer in her home-state tournament, as she continues her run in Miami.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.miamiopen.com\/draws\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.miamiopen.com\/draws\/\" target=\"_blank\">Click here<\/a> to view the Miami Open tournament bracket.<\/p>\n<p>\ud83c\udfe0 News From Your Neighborhood<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-article-body__copyright\">Copyright 2026 by WPLG Local10.com &#8211; All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"Ryan Mackey\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/https:\/\/author-service-images-sandbox-us-east-1.publishing.aws.arc.pub\/wplginc\/8725e99c-e445-48a0-bd.jpeg\"  width=\"100\" height=\"100\"\/>Ryan Mackey <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-author-bio__author-description\">Ryan Mackey is a Digital Journalist at WPLG. He was born on Long Island, New York, and has lived in Sunrise, Florida, since 1994.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published:\u00a0March 25, 2026 at 8:07 AM lead-art-block.fullscreen-enterExpandWPLG MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. \u2014 South Florida native and tennis star Coco&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205425,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-205424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}