Nine in a row!! Gauff books spot in Wuhan semis

American Coco Gauff, the No 4 seed, continued her stellar run in Asia by winning her ninth consecutive match on Friday.

The former US Open champion defeated Pole Magda Linette 6-0, 6-4 in one hour and 24 minutes to reach the last four of the Wuhan Open at the Optics Valley International Tennis Center.

After losing the first set 6-0, Linette put up a stronger fight in the second, holding serve through 3-3. However, Gauff broke in the seventh game and although she failed to convert three matchpoints in the ninth game, the American closed the match on her fourth in the next one. The only spot of bother came for her in the serving department as she hit eight doubles faults during the match. Gauff improves to 2-0 lifetime against the Polish player.

The American won six matches to claim the WTA China Open in Beijing last week and now is two wins away from winning back-to-back WTA 1000 titles.

Gauff, ranked No 4, will play the winner of the match between Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka, the top seed, and Pole Magdalena Frech next.

This was Gauff’s 50th match win of the 2024 season, joining world No 1 Iga Swiatek and world No 2 Aryna Sabalenka as the only players with 50 or more wins this year on the tour.  She is also the youngest player to secure 50 or more WTA main-draw victories in back-to-back years since Caroline Wozniacki achieved the same in 2009-10.

Gauff won against Bulgarian Viktoriya Tomova (6-1, 6-2) and Ukrainian Marta Kostyuk, the No 13 seed (6-4, 6-1) earlier in the week.

Linette, ranked No 45, defeated Russian Liudmila Samsonova, the No 11 seed (6-2, 6-2), Ukrainian qualifier Lesia Tsurenko (5-2 ret.) and Russian Daria Kasatkina, the No 8 seed (6-2, 6-3) in previous rounds of the tournament

Wuhan WTA 1000, other quarter-final matches (Optics Valley International Tennis Center, hard, USD 3,221,715):

• Qinwen Zheng vs. Jasmine Paolini
• Aryna Sabalenka vs. Magdalena Frech
• Ekaterina Alexandrova vs. Xinyu Wang

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