Coco Gauff defeats Caroline Wozniacki and reaches the quarterfinals at the US Open

NEW YORK – Coco Gauff became the first American teenager since Serena Williams more than two decades ago to reach the US Open quarterfinals in two consecutive years, getting there this time by defeating Caroline Wozniacki 6-3, 3-6, 6-1. Sunday.

Gauff asked one of her coaches, Brad Gilbert, to stop talking to her as the second set went down. But it ended up winning the last six games of the match.

Gauff is 19 years old. Wozniacki, the 2018 Australian Open champion and two-time Flushing Meadows runner-up, is a 33-year-old mother of two and was playing in only her third tournament since retiring last month.

It was the hottest day of the event so far, with temperatures reaching 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius).

Gauff continued to lose the mark in the second set, as she committed 22 unforced errors, but she improved that significantly, as she committed only eight errors in the final set.

Gauff, whose best performance at a Grand Slam was to reach the 2022 French Open final, has won 15 of her past 16 matches. This race comes directly after a first-round exit at Wimbledon in July. It also includes the two biggest titles of her career, at the DC Open and in Cincinnati.

She lost to Caroline Garcia in the quarterfinals a year ago in New York. This time, the opponent will be defending champion and No. 1 seed Iga Swiatek or No. 20 seed Jelena Ostapenko.