Gauff dominates Jabeur, in last eight
PARIS: American teenager Coco Gauff reached her first Grand Slam quarter-final with a crushing 6-3 6-1 defeat of Tunisia’s Ons Jabeur in the fourth round of the French Open on Monday.
The 17-year-old capitalised on a nervous start by Jabeur and never let her opponent off the hook in a clinical display.
Jabeur, like Gauff a former junior French Open champion, tried to mix things up with her trademark drop shots but nothing could disrupt Gauff’s flow.
Gauff wrapped up the win in less than an hour on her fourth match point and is yet to drop a set in the tournament.
She will face Czech Barbora Krejcikova, who swept Sloane Stephens aside 6-2 6-0, for a place in the semis.
“Very happy to reach my first quarter-final, I played really well today,” 24th seed Gauff said on court.
Big-hitting Krejcikova powered past former finalist Sloane Stephens of the United States 6-2 6-0 in their matchup of unseeded players to reach the quarter-finals.
The 33rd-ranked Krejcikova, who won the 2018 doubles title at Roland Garros with Katerina Siniakov, has been unbeaten since a maiden title-winning run in Strasbourg ahead of the French Open and dominated the 2017 U.S. Open winner from the start on a sun-bathed Suzanne Lenglen court.
Former world number three Stephens, who reached the final in Paris in 2018, did not have any answer to Krejcikova’s powerful but effortless play in their first meeting and did not help her cause by committing 26 unforced errors.
The 25-year-old Krejcikova broke the American’s serve twice in the opening set and then wiped her out in the second.
The Czech converted her second matchpoint with a forehand winner, her 10th of the match.
Osaka out of Berlin Open
BERLIN: Naomi Osaka has pulled out of next week’s Berlin WTA grasscourt tournament in the wake of her controversial exit from the French Open, organisers confirmed Monday.
“We have received notification that Naomi Osaka cannot start in Berlin. After consulting her management, she will take a break,” said a spokesman for the Berlin tournament, which starts June 14.
Osaka has not said when she plans to play next, casting doubt on her participation at Wimbledon, which starts on June 28, and the Tokyo Olympics.
The 23-year-old four-time Grand Slam winner has been in the spotlight since withdrawing from Roland Garros after a dispute over her refusal to attend press conferences.
As a result, French tennis officials fined Osaka $15,000 and threatened to axe her from the tournament for not honoring mandatory media commitments, prompting the Japanese star to withdraw.
On Saturday, Osaka, who revealed her ongoing battle with depression and anxiety which she said having to face the media exacerbated, thanked her supporters in a brief message on Instagram.