The winner of the United States Open, Coco Gauff, advanced to the Australian Open semifinals on Tuesday, although she rated her own play a “C,” calling it “erroneous.”
The unseeded Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine put up a fight against the fourth-ranked American player in the world, but the American eventually prevailed 7-6, 6-7, 6-2.
Gauff will now play in the semi-finals on Thursday against either ninth-seeded Barbora Krejcikova or reigning champion Aryna Sabalenka.
Gauff, who said that she battled with serve and lost a few opportunities despite winning, was critical of her performance, hitting just 17 wins.
“I think today was definitely a ‘C’ game, so didn’t play my best tennis but really proud that I was able to get through today’s match,” said the tennis player, who is 19 years old.
“Hopefully got the bad match out of the way and I can play even better.”
Due to their combined 107 unforced errors and astounding 16 service breaks during the match, both players were to blame for the low-quality encounter, according to AFP.
“I was just trying to get one more game in the first set and at least make it competitive and then one game turned to another and I was able to win that set,” said the American player.
She said that the lessons she had learnt from winning the US Open the previous year had enabled her to “problem solve” at crucial times.
“It was quite significant. I knew how I was supposed to play today, but I was unable to do it,” stated Gauff. “Yeah, but addressing problems is like tennis. You never know, a week from now someone might play you entirely differently than they did when you played them,” she continued.
It’s a component of it. You receive a scouting report at the end of the day, but you have to follow your instincts and give it your all in the hopes of winning. I spent my day doing it.”
