Former champ Gauff to face Paolini in Cincinnati quarterfinals
No. 2 seed Coco Gauff booked her place in her second Cincinnati Open quarterfinal with a 6-2, 6-4 defeat of Lucia Bronzetti in 1 hour and 19 minutes.
Cincinnati: Draws | Scores | Order of play
Gauff had received a third-round walkover from Dayana Yastremska, meaning it had been four days since her last competitive match, a straight-sets win over Wang Xinyu in the second round. But the 2023 champion showed little sign of rust as she reached the last eight of a tournament for the first time since claiming her second major title at Roland Garros.
Gauff advances to her fifth quarterfinal at WTA 1000 or Grand Slam level in 2025 out of 10 tournaments, and improves to 2-0 overall against Bronzetti. She will next face No. 7 seed Jasmine Paolini, who defeated an ailing Barbora Krejcikova 6-1, 6-2 in 1 hour and 11 minutes.
In the pair's first meeting since the 2024 Wimbledon final, Krejcikova received medical treatment on her left foot trailing 3-0 in the second set, and the Czech's movement was visibly hampered.
"I think she wasn't at 100%, but she's an unbelievable player," Paolini said afterwards. "She can put the ball wherever she wants every time, I don't know how she does this. But I'm happy that I tried to stay there mentally until the last point."
Friday's quarterfinal will be the fifth meeting between Gauff and Paolini, and their second encounter in Cincinnati: Gauff defeated the Italian 6-3, 6-2 in the 2023 quarterfinals. Gauff won their first two contests, both on hard courts, but this year Paolini has levelled the head-to-head with two victories on clay.
Solid stats for Gauff: Despite reaching the fourth round in Montreal last week, Gauff's run in Canada was notable for the reappearance of the serving yips that have come and gone throughout her career: she tallied 43 double faults in three matches. Eight had followed against Wang in her Cincinnati opener, and she committed another just two points into her match against Bronzetti.
But that, largely, was that. Gauff committed just three double faults overall -- her lowest total in a single match since the two she hit against Lois Boisson in the Roland Garros semifinals. She won 63% of her first-serve points, but also a tidy 58% of her second-serve points, and struck 23 winners to Bronzetti's seven.
No. 61-ranked Bronzetti's ability to draw out points had earned her two upsets of seeds, Daria Kasatkina and Jelena Ostapenko, to make the last 16. But the strategy met its match in Gauff, who paired superior grinding ability with patient point construction to finish rallies on her own terms.
"For the most part I played aggressive," Gauff said in her on-court interview. "Maybe got a little passive in some of those games. But it's tough -- the balls are super light and they fly, and she wasn't giving me much pace, so I was just trying to play controlled but also aggressive."