(September 5, 2023) FLUSHING, NY – No. 6 seed Coco Gauff has reached her first US Open semifinal. She defeated 20th seed and former French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko 6-0, 6-2 in 68 minutes in Arthur Ashe Stadium to begin the Day session on Tuesday.
Gauff won 58 points total to the Latvian’s 35.
The hard-hitting Ostapenko had 36 unforced errors to Gauff’s14.
Gauff is the first American teenager to reach the US Open semifinals since 2001 when Serena Williams did it also at 19.
Gauff is now 16-1 since Wimbledon.
The win today gave Gauff her 10th consecutive match win, the longest win streak in her career.
Gauff will play No. 10 Karolina Muchova of the Czech Republic next.
“I’m so happy,” she said in her on-court interview with Pam Shriver. Last year I lost in the quarterfinal stage. Still have a long way to go, but I’m happy and ready to get back to work on the next one.”
“Honestly, I didn’t feel comfortable at all during the match – even on the match points. I know the game she plays. she has the ability to come back no matter the scoreline. I was just trying to get every point, trying to play every ball
“It’s tough against her, because you can’t really be aggressive. so, I was trying my best to be as aggressive as I could and most of the time.
“I was just trying to get the ball deep. She’s a tough player, she had a great tournament and I get along with her well off the court.”
“Yeah, today was not really good match from me,” Ostapenko said to media. “I think it’s really hard to recover from those night matches, because after beating world No. 1, I went to sleep at, like, 5:00 in the morning, and still, you sleep for, I don’t know, maybe like seven, eight hours, but you completely don’t recover. Yesterday the whole day I felt very low energy. I thought today I was, like, going to wake up and feel better. But honestly, I didn’t really feel much better.”
“Honestly there were so many games where I had chances and I missed some, really, as I think, easy balls, and I think my concentration was not there comparing to the matches I played.
“I think she was also very nervous today. I mean, still, the score is what it is. But there were so many games deuce, advantage, deuce, advantage, that I could really win.”
The 27-year-old Latvian was not happy to play an early day match, when her last match was late at night on Sunday.
“If I play a match, like, a late-night session, then I suppose in one day I have to play at least at the same time or later on, because you don’t really have much time to recover,” Ostapenko explained. “Even you have this day in between, but you still need to practice, to do your things, to do the treatment and stuff.
“So I think it was better for her the schedule, because obviously she played much earlier the day I played night session.”
“The thing was that when I asked the day before, I was pretty sure I’m gonna play at night session, because that’s what they told me.
“When the schedule came out, I saw I’m playing first match and was, like, wow, that’s a little bit strange scheduling.”
“Playing Jelena you know that 6-0 set quite literally means nothing,” Gauff said. “Which that’s tennis in general because there’s two out of three. I feel like that means even more nothing against her. Honestly, I wouldn’t lie, I am surprised by, not I guess the result but how the match went today. I’m happy with how I was able to stay in it.”
“I mean, anytime you beat someone 6-0, especially her, I noticed her timing or something wasn’t working. But I’ve also played her twice. “This was the third time. It was a similar way in Australia where I went up a break in the first set and then lost that set. So today when I went up to the break, I was just trying to tell myself to stay on her.
“You know, I don’t know if the heat really played a factor or not, because the match was, you know, short. I do think if it was a longer match, I think it would have favored me even more.
“But yeah, I definitely could tell that she was a little bit frustrated with her performance today.”
“Since she lost the final of last year’s French Open.” Gauff was asked about what she has learned since then. “I learned that, you know, there’s still a lot of tennis left to play, and it’s a long match and a long tournament. You know, even though the semifinals, by theory, if you want to win there’s two matches left. You can’t think like that.
“I’m still in the mindset that I’m in the beginning of the tournament. I think that’s what I have learned, you know, in the past of being in quarterfinals, before I would think, you know, close to the end, but right now I have the mentality that I told myself I still have another two weeks to play. So that’s where my mind is at.
“Then obviously when it’s over, it’s over. But right now I’m just saying another two weeks. And also, I think what’s helping is playing from D.C. to Montreal to Cincinnati, that was a long type of swing. So I think doing well in those tournaments built my mental endurance. Always had the physical endurance but it built my mental endurance.
“Right now I feel emotionally fresh, which I think was the problem in the past in Grand Slams, I would emotionally be drained. Obviously I’m physically fresh and emotionally fresh, and I think that just came from experience.
“I think this is one of the harder runs I’ve had to the quarterfinal stage. Obviously never got to semis, but I don’t know, I just feel so fresh, to be honest. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been tricking myself or maybe when this is over I’m going to hit a wall. But I’m really proud of how I’m able to get through these matches.”
No. 10 seed Karolina Muchova of the Czech Republic defeated No. 30 Sorana Cirstea of Romania 6-0, 6-3 to gain her first berth in the US Open final four.
“It was 6-Love, but the games we played, they were pretty close,” Muchova said to media. So, the score doesn’t really show how close the game was. But yeah, it was tough.
“One game felt like we played it 15 minutes from deuce to ad. Yeah, 6-Love, but I didn’t feel like it went very easy. So I still had to fight for every game.
“Then I think it was very important to break her back when it was Love-2 in the second set, and I’m really glad that I pulled it there, because yeah, then I hold my serve and got back into the game just, yeah, just to hold the serve. That was very important game.”
The match-up between Gauff and Muchova will be a re-match of the recent Cincinnati final, where Gauff won her first WTA 1000 title.
Muchova talked about the keys to the match in playing Gauff:
“The key of the match… I didn’t think of it much yet, but for sure playing my own game. I don’t really want to say all the keys (smiling), I mean, with the tactics. So I’ll just focus on myself, and yeah, try to bring the best out of me to play with her.”
“She’s very athletic. She never gives up. Runs for every ball. Doesn’t do many mistakes. So, she has kind of all the strokes. So very, very good player from all the aspects.”
‘”I’m as well pretty confident now,” Muchova said of playing Gauff. “I’m just up for the challenge. Again, she’s a great player, it’s going to be for sure tough battle, but yeah, I’ll be ready.”
