After saving three match points just to escape the third round in Dubai, Coco Gauff played as if she had a new lease on life in Thursday\u2019s quarterfinal against Alexandra Eala. She raced past the Filipino 6-0, 6-2 in 67 minutes, silencing what had been a frenetic Center Court crowd throughout the week\u2019s night sessions and setting up a semifinal showdown with Elina Svitolina, who ended the dream run of lucky loser Antonia Ruzic in three sets later Thursday night.<\/p>\n
Dubai:\u00a0Scores\u00a0<\/a>|\u00a0Draws<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Order of play<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n With her first win over Eala at the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz level, Gauff advanced to her second Dubai semifinal and became the third American into the last four. Jessica Pegula and Amanda Anisimova each won three-setters earlier in the day, over Clara Tauson and defending champion Mirra Andreeva, respectively, to join her.<\/p>\n \u201cEach match, I\u2019ve gotten better,\u201d Gauff said in her on-court interview. \u201cI definitely wasn\u2019t in good spirits before entering this tournament, but you know, one match can change everything. I honestly didn\u2019t think I would be in the semis at the start of this, but I\u2019m happy that I\u2019m here.\u201d<\/p>\n Three Americans will feature in the semifinals of a WTA 1000 event for the third time since the format\u2019s introduction in 2009 following Beijing 2025 (Gauff, Pegula, Anisimova) and Toronto 2024 (Navarro, Anisimova, Pegula).<\/p>\n All told, Gauff\u2019s path to victory on Thursday was far smoother than her compatriots\u2019, thanks to a performance that was night-and-day from her previous outing.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s how she got the better of Eala in a battle of young stars and punched her ticket to the semifinals.<\/p>\n Starting fast:<\/strong> Sometimes it\u2019s as simple as getting off on the right foot. Against Mertens, Gauff was broken to begin the match and quickly fell behind 2-0. She never fully recovered in that opening set, forcing her to play from behind for most of the match.<\/p>\n Against Eala, it was the other way around. Gauff broke in the opening game, consolidated for 2-0 and never looked back. And she didn\u2019t just control the start, she dominated it. She won all six games in the first set and the first 10 games of the match before Eala finally got on the board.<\/p>\n Playing from in front allowed Gauff to swing more freely than she has in recent weeks and it had a noticeable trickle-down effect.<\/p>\n Finding (and winning) first serves:<\/strong> That freedom showed up most clearly on serve. While her delivery wasn\u2019t perfect — she hit eight double faults, including four in one second-set game — it was a clear improvement from her third-round win over Mertens.<\/p>\n Gauff was able to inflict significant damage with her first serve in particular, landing 54% of her first serves, a 12% jump from the previous round. She won 77% of those points, and that efficiency helped her win 60% of her service points overall, compared with just 50% against Mertens.<\/p>\n Eala, meanwhile, struggled mightily. She placed 57% of her first serves but won only 30% of those points, one of two major statistical gaps that defined the match.<\/p>\n Forehand dominance:<\/strong> The other was the effectiveness of each player\u2019s forehand. And when Gauff is striking it cleanly, results like the one Thursday tend to follow.<\/p>\n She cut down the errors dramatically from her previous match and repeatedly turned to the forehand in big moments. Eala, by contrast, never found the shot. A pivotal sequence that defined the match came with Gauff leading 3-0 in the first set: an Eala forehand error handed Gauff a game point, and the World No. 4 finished the game with a forehand winner at the net for a 4-0 lead.<\/p>\n In all, Gauff used the forehand to finish off multiple games, while Eala\u2019s misfires off that wing ended several of her own, culminating in one final error on the last point of the match. She finished with just eight winners to 33 unforced errors, while Gauff hit 15 winners to 19 unforced errors.\u00a0<\/p>\n What\u2019s next:<\/strong> The result sends Gauff into her 13th WTA 1000 semifinal, the most by any player before turning 22 since the format\u2019s introduction, and the third most by an American in that span, trailing only Pegula (14) and Serena Williams (26).<\/p>\n She\u2019ll face Svitolina next. Gauff is 2-2 against the Ukrainian, most recently falling to her in the Australian Open quarterfinals. With a win in the semis, Gauff would advance to her first Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships final.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Eala’s time in Dubai comes to an end, but it was a momentous week for the Filipino, who reached the second WTA 1000 quarterfinal of her young career and showed she still has room to grow.<\/p>\n “At the end of the day, I think there’s definitely still a gap in terms of level between me and Coco and other players of her caliber,” Eala said in her post-match press conference. “My job is to try and close that gap, and I think I’m doing that quite well. So I’ll keep working on it and hopefully next time it will be a bit tighter.”<\/p>\n Svitolina comes from set down to reach fifth Dubai semifinal<\/strong><\/p>\n Make way, Caroline Wozniacki — Dubai has a new queen.<\/p>\n Svitolina rallied from a set down to defeat Ruzic 3-6, 6-2, 6-3 in just over two hours Thursday night, reaching her fifth semifinal in Dubai and earning her 23rd match victory at the event, surpassing Wozniacki for the most all time.<\/p>\n But first she had to withstand a spirited challenge from Ruzic, who, after receiving a spot in the main draw amid a wave of withdrawals, made the absolute most of her opportunity.<\/p>\n “Antonia played unbelievable, to be fair,” Svitolina said in her on-court interview. “I really had to step up my game. I had to bring something extra tonight, and I’m very happy with the way I could bounce back in the second set. And to win it in three gives me a lot of confidence.”<\/p>\n Svitolina spent much of the opening set under duress as Ruzic unloaded forehand winner after forehand winner and generated nine break points on the Ukrainian’s serve. She converted only two, but it was enough to take the early lead. Svitolina showed her first signs of life when she broke for 3-1 in the second set, only for Ruzic to break right back for 3-2 and keep the pressure on.<\/p>\n From there, however, Svitolina took full control. The two-time Dubai champion won the final three games of the second set and didn’t face a break point the remainder of the match. After a few missed opportunities earlier in the decider, Svitolina converted a break to go up 4-2, and as they say, the rest is history.<\/p>\n Like Gauff, the victory sends Svitolina into the 13th WTA 1000 semifinal of her career. It also gives her win No. 14 on the season, placing her atop the tour’s win table so far in 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After saving three match points just to escape the third round in Dubai, Coco Gauff played as if…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":776060,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4105],"tags":[79,1068,661,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-776059","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis","10":"tag-text","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116100358750284713","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=776059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/776060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=776059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=776059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=776059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}