Paris (AP) – Coco Gauff Keep the double bankruptcy. She was missing a lot of other strokes. She continued to lose game matches. And all the time, she sigh or tilt her head or looked generally uncomfortable.
What Gauff, 21, has never done Wednesday during a tense trend Open of France Final district against another American woman with a Grand Chelem title, Madison KeysIt was hope or to leave. And, in a competition filled with many errors, it was Gauff who emerged to win eight of the last nine games for a 6-7 victory (6), 6-4, 6-1 on the keys and a third trip to the semi-finals at Roland-Garros.
“I had that in me from a young age,” said the N ° 2 seed seedswhich won US Open 2023 in adolescence and was the finalist of the French Open the previous year. “When times become more difficult, knowing that I can dig deeply in these difficult times.”
Where does it come from?
“Just a love to win, the desire to win. It is not something that is taught or anything. It’s just that I have always had that in me, and not only in tennis but in everything. I am a very competitive person,” she said. “My philosophy is that if I can leave everything, then the loss will do much less than regretting not giving everything.”
GAUFF had to overcome 10 double defects – three in the opening equal opening alone – and the first set that she dropped into the tournament, as well as to face the big keys, the seeded n ° 7, which entered with a sequence of victories of 11 matches of 11 games after its title at the Australian Open in January.
They combined for 101 unlocked errors and only 40 winners over two hours under a closed roof at the court of Philippe-Chatrier on a misty and cold day.
Almost half of the games – 14 out of 29 – presented service breaks. But from 4 in the second set, Gauff was held four times in a row while moving away. She made two uncomposed mistakes in the last set, including only one double fault.
After having lagged 4-1 at the start, and twice being a single point of the 5-1 train, Gauff went to a racket with a different tension in the strings to see if it would help.
“Maybe it was, and maybe that was not the case. I would like to think that it helped a little,” she said. “Sometimes this thing could be mental. Maybe you think:” Oh, I changed my racket, I’m going to play better, and you start to do it. I don’t know. “”
She will play Thursday for a berth in another major final, faced with a 361st row French joker entrance Wood drinkwhich is on one of the most amazing races in the history of tennis. Boisson beat No. 6 Mirra Andreeva 7-6 (6), 6-3 in the quarter-final to follow her upheaval by Jessica Pegula n ° 3 in the fourth round.
Boisson, 22, is the first woman to reach the semi-finals during her beginnings at the Grand Chelem since 1989, when Monica Seles and Jennifer Capriati both did it to the French Open. A crowd that gave support to Gauff against Keys via cries of “Come on, Coco!” was Hoarse that can be behind drinkGrowing Andreeva, 18.
The semi-final of other women is quite a match: Triple reigning champion IGA Swiatek vs Aryna Sabalenka, n ° 1, n ° 1. They advanced with victories in the quarter -finals on Tuesday.
It was Swiatek who arrested Gauff in Roland-Garros in the semi-finals last year and in the final three years ago.
“I have much more work left,” said Gauff, who lifted my arms above his failures, then spread them after the last point against Keys, “but I’m going to savor it today.”
On several occasions, GAUFF rushed this way or that to obtain his racket on a keys shot and send it back, often leading to a lack.
“The court being a little slower, coupled to the fact that it covers the court so well, put me a little pressure to go a little more for my photos and perhaps press a little too early,” said Keys, who was sometimes heading with a cake on his right leg.
“There were a lot of points where I wanted to play someone else,” said Keys, “I would have won the point.”
___
More tennis AP: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis
