No. 3 seed Coco Gauff had to save a match point on her way to taking down No. 16 seed Iva Jovic 5-7, 7-5, 6-2 in an all-American Round of 16 battle at the Italian Open on Monday in Rome.
Jovic, 18, had Gauff on the ropes as she went up a break in the second set and served for the match at 5-3. She reached 40-30 but Gauff extended the match by winning the next point, and, after three deuces, the game.
While the more experienced Gauff turned the tables, Jovic needed a medical timeout for treatment on her finger. Gauff won out and forced a third set that she dominated, rattling off the last four games in a row to cement the victory.
“Honestly on that match point my head was almost to the locker room, to be honest. I was (thinking), ‘Well, I’m going to hear a lot about this one,'” Gauff said with a smile post-match. “Then after, I don’t know, I was able to get through it. I think she maybe dropped a little bit her level when she had the lead. It was able to help me get back into the match.”
Gauff broke Jovic’s serve on 8 of 13 opportunities and benefited from her opponent’s 10 double faults.
Gauff’s quarterfinal opponent will be No. 8 seed Mirra Andreeva of Russia, who beat Belgian No. 21 Elise Mertens 6-3, 6-3.
Elsewhere in the Round of 16, No. 4 seed Iga Swiatek of Poland took down No. 15 Naomi Osaka of Japan 6-2, 6-1. Osaka committed 20 unforced errors in the first set alone to hand Swiatek all the momentum.
Next up for Swiatek will be fifth-seeded Jessica Pegula, who eliminated Austria’s Anastasia Potapova 7-6 (6), 6-2.
Two former Rome champions will meet in the quarters as No. 2 seed Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan and No. 7 seed Elina Svitolina of Ukraine advanced in straight sets.
Rybakina knocked out Czech opponent Karolina Pliskova 6-0, 6-2 in a tidy 58 minutes, and Svitolina beat another Czech, Nikola Bartunkova, 6-2, 6-3.
“We know each other well,” Rybakina said of Svitolina, whom she leads 4-3 overall in their career head-to-head. “I will try to do my best. I’ll try to serve well, stay aggressive as always, recover and hopefully it’s going to go my way.”
A pair of upsets formed the final quarterfinal matchup. Unseeded Latvian Jelena Ostapenko took down No. 22 Anna Kalinskaya of Russia 6-1, 6-2, and Romanian 26th seed Sorana Cirstea beat Czech 13th seed Linda Noskova 6-2, 6-4.
–Field Level Media
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