Madrid Open: Resurgent Badosa demolishes Gauff to reach fourth round

Spaniard Paula Badosa, the No 26 seed, outplayed American Coco Gauff, the No 6 seed, 6-3, 6-0 to move into the fourth round of the Madrid Open at the Caja Magica on Saturday.

Badosa, ranked No 42, will face the winner of the match between Spanish wildcard Rebeka Masarova and Greek Maria Sakkari, the No 9 seed, next.

Badosa targeted the Gauff forehand throughout and it worked.

“She plays amazing when she’s defending,” the Spaniard said. “She’s very fast. She has crazy backhand, very good serve, especially first serves. I just try to return her every ball to make her play one more. Sometimes when she feels she doesn’t have free points on the serve, she starts to serve a little bit worse.

“And of course going more to her forehand, most because her backhand is very good, and when you have like the spot there, you just go there, but I just tried to go to her forehand. Yeah, sometimes just give it to her and make her like do more what she can. And, yeah, that’s a little bit the tactic that I can say now. I hope she doesn’t read it (smiling).”

The Spaniard edged out Italian Elisabetta Cocciaretto (6-3, 4-6, 6-4) in the previous round of the Madrid tournament.

Gauff, ranked No 6, had beaten Spanish qualifier Irene Burillo Escorihuela (6-4, 6-1).

Madrid WTA 1000, other third-round results (Caja Magica, clay, USD 7.652.174, most recent results first):

• Qinwen Zheng vs. Ekaterina Alexandrova : later in Madrid
• Barbora Krejcikova vs. Xiyu Wang : later in Madrid
• Iga Swiatek vs. Bernarda Pera : later in Madrid
• Petra Martic vs. Anna Kalinskaya : later in Madrid
• Jessica Pegula vs. Marie Bouzkova : later in Madrid
• Veronika Kudermetova vs. Anastasia Potapova : later in Madrid
• Lesia Tsurenko vs. Daria Kasatkina : later in Madrid
• Martina Trevisan vs. Alycia Parks : later in Madrid
• Rebeka Masarova vs. Maria Sakkari : later in Madrid
• Caroline Garcia vs. Mayar Sherif : later in Madrid
• Mirra Andreeva (WC) beat Magda Linette (17): 6-3, 6-3
• Liudmila Samsonova (14) beat Jelena Ostapenko (19): 6-2, 6-0
• Aryna Sabalenka (2) beat Camila Osorio (WC): 6-4, 7-5
• Elise Mertens (24) beat Jule Niemeier: 6-3, 6-4
• Irina-Camelia Begu (31) beat Shelby Rogers (33): 7-5, 6-2