Gauff crashes out of Western & Southern Open, slump continues

Kazakh Yulia Putintseva edged out American Coco Gauff, the second seed, 6-4, 2-6, 6-4 to advance to the last 16 of the Western & Southern Open at the Lindner Family Tennis Center in Cincinnati on Thursday.

Double faults again hindered Gauff in the opening match of her Cincinnati title defence. She struck nine doubles across the three sets, leading to five breaks of her serve overall.

Gauff has now lost to players ranked lower than her in her past five matches, dating back to Roland-Garros where she fell to Iga Swiatek. Her ranking will drop to No 3 on Monday, with Swiatek and Aryna Sabalenka clinching the top two seed spots in New York as a result later this month.

Initially, it seemed as though Gauff would scrap her way out of this match, with the American grabbing a 4-2 lead in the deciding set. However Putintseva – who has now beaten the top two players in the WTA rankings this year – was able to come back strongly, bagging her third top 10 win of the season.

Putintseva, ranked No 33, has now won 10 of her last 11 matches, and will face Spaniard Paula Badosa next.

Ahead of her victory, the Kazakh won against qualifier Harriet Dart (4-6, 6-0, 6-1).

Cincinnati WTA 1000, other second-round results (Lindner Family Tennis Center, hard, USD 3.211.715, most recent results first):

• Jessica Pegula vs. Karolina Muchova
• Qinwen Zheng vs. Magdalena Frech
• Caroline Wozniacki vs. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova
• Anastasia Potapova vs. Jasmine Paolini
• Mirra Andreeva vs. Karolina Pliskova: thursday
• Paula Badosa beat Anna Kalinskaya (13): 6-3, 6-2
• Taylor Townsend (Q) beat Daria Kasatkina (9): 6-1, 2-6, 6-1
• Liudmila Samsonova (10) beat Magda Linette: 7-6 (10), 6-1
• Aryna Sabalenka (3) beat Elisabetta Cocciaretto: 6-3, 6-4
• Diana Shnaider beat Ashlyn Krueger (Q): 7-5, 6-0
• Leylah Fernandez beat Elena Rybakina (4): 3-6, 7-6 (3), 6-4
• Elina Avanesyan (LL) beat Jelena Ostapenko (8): 2-6, 6-2, 6-2
• Elina Svitolina beat Jessica Bouzas Maneiro (LL): 6-4, 6-1
• Iga Swiatek (1) beat Varvara Gracheva (Q): 6-0, 6-7 (8), 6-2
• Marta Kostyuk (15) beat Lulu Sun (Q): 6-3, 7-5