By Chris Oddo | Wednesday February 24, 2021
The draw cracked open on Wednesday at the Adelaide International, and Coco Gauff has put herself in position to take advantage.
On a day that saw top-seeded defending champion Ash Barty crash out against American Danielle Collins, Gauff booked herself a quarterfinal clash with fellow American Shelby Rogers.
Gauff rallied from a set down to defeat sixth-seeded Petra Martic 5-7, 6-3, 6-4, notching her best win by ranking since last October.
The 16-year-old was lethal from the backhand side in the final two sets and routinely put Martic under pressure as she engineered an impressive comeback to topple the 30-year-old Croatian.
If one of the knocks against Gauff in recent months has been her inability to close out matches under pressure, then she took a step on Wednesday as she played frontrunner perfectly in sets two and three, each time after racing out to quick leads.
There was a wobble at the end of the second set when Gauff faced two break points while serving to close it out, but she got it done for 6-3. In the third set she had no such trouble and served out her win easily to lock up her fifth win of the season.
“I just decided to be more aggressive and hit through my shots,” Gauff said on court after the match. “I knew I could come back if I played the right tennis. The first set I had opportunities to win it, and I just think I played the pressure points better [in sets two and three].”
Collins powered past Barty thanks to 20 winners and just 15 unforced errors. The victory reverses an 0-3 career record against the Aussie for Collins as she avenges a semifinal loss at Adelaide to Barty last year.
It was Collins’ first win over a reigning No.1.
Second-seeded Belinda Bencic powered past Misaki Doi, 6-1, 6-3, while Jil Teichmann toppled No.8-seeded Wang Qiang, 3-6, 6-3, 6-3. Anastasija Sevastova defeated Lucky Loser Christina McHale, who took her place in the draw when Elise Mertens pulled out with a shoulder injury, and Storm Sanders took out seventh-seeded Yulia Putintseva, 6-4, 5-7, 6-1.