This year’s US Open champion Coco Gauff came back from a break down in the third set to beat Petra Martic 7-5 5-7 7-6 (7-2) after 3 hours and 1 minutes and reach the Round of 16 at the China Open in Beijing. Gauff won his 14th straight match.
Gauff will face either either this year’s year Veronika Kudemertova or Lesla Tsurenko.
Gauff beat Martic in three sets in their only previous head-to-head match at the 2021 Adelaide Open.
Both players went on serve until the 12th game when Gauff converted her first break point to win the first set 7-5.
Martic went up a break three times, but Gauff broke back each time in the second set. Martic broke for the fourth time to take a 6-5 lead and served out the second set 7-5 to force the match to the decider.
Martic broke Gauff to take a 5-4 lead earning a chance to serve for the fifth top 5 win of her career. Gauff broke straight back in the 10th game to draw level to 5-5. Gauff earned three mini-breaks to win the tie-break 7-2.
Jessica Pegula came back from one set down to beat Anna Blinkova 6-7 (2-7) 6-2 6-1. Blinkova went up a break twice but Pegula pulled back on serve both times. Pegula earned four set points on Blinkova’s serve at 5-4. Blinkova came back to win the tie-break 7-2 with four mini-breaks. Pegula broke twice in the second set and three times to win the third set. The US player earned 19 break points and faced just four on her serve. Pegula will face Jelena Ostapenko in the Round of 16. Pegula leads 3-1 in her previous four head-to-head matches against Ostapenko.
