Gauff wins every return game in straight-set victory over Noskova

Coco Gauff struggled to hold serve early in her Western & Southern Open third-round match against Linda Noskova on Thursday night but then found her game and raced away for a 6-4, 6-0 victory. Gauff cruised into the quarter-finals after just one hour and two minutes, setting up an encounter with Jasmine Paolini.

There was only one service hold in the entire first set. Gauff was broken four times but broke Noskova on five occasions, so the American’s lone hold was enough to get the job done. For the overall match, Gauff won all eight of her return games en route to delivering a second-set bagel.

In the previous round of the WTA Cincinnati 1000, the 19-year-old defeated Egyptian Mayar Sherif (6-2, 6-2).

Noskova, ranked No 50, beat Russian Liudmila Samsonova (2-6, 6-3, 6-1) and edged out No 9 seed Petra Kvitova (3-6, 6-2, 6-4) to reach the last 16.

Cincinnati WTA 1000, other third-round results:

• Ons Jabeur (5) beat Donna Vekic: 5-2 ret.
• Aryna Sabalenka (2) beat Daria Kasatkina (14): 6-3, 6-3
• Marie Bouzkova beat Jessica Pegula (3): 6-4, 6-0
• Jasmine Paolini beat Elena Rybakina (4): 4-6, 5-2 ret.
• Iga Swiatek (1) beat Qinwen Zheng: 3-6, 6-1, 6-1
• Karolina Muchova beat Maria Sakkari (8): 6-3, 2-6, 6-3
• Marketa Vondrousova (10) beat Sloane Stephens: 7-5, 6-3

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