Italian Camila Giorgi surprised American Coco Gauff with a 6-4, 7-6 (2) victory on Friday night at the National Bank of Montreal Open to advance to the very first semi-final of her career in a tournament of this caliber, the Masters 1000 series.
She will face the American Jessica Pegula, who beat the slugger of the Canadian Bianca Andreescu, the Tunisian Ons Jabeur (13th seed), in three sets of 1-6, 7-6 (4) and 6-0.
Completely in control in the first match on the evening program, Giorgi easily won the first set on the count of 6-4.
Giorgi came very close to breaking Gauff in the third game of the first set, but the teenager resisted four times. She succeeded, however, on her next attempt, in game five, to take the lead 3-2. The rest was just a formality for the 71st racket in the world.
Gauff started the second set with a lot more conviction. In the second game, the rising WTA star in turn broke his tough opponent, increasing his lead to 2-0.
Late 3-1, Giorgi rebounded with a crucial breakage to close the gap to 3-2. She then confirmed this one to tie the 3-3 tie.
Giorgi returned to the charge in the ninth game, making another rather important break that allowed him to serve for the game. But she missed her chance. Result: we are back to square one at 5-5!
Never two without three! Giorgi responded with another break, a third in a row, to come close to a single game of victory. But again, she failed at the task.
Once in the tiebreaker, she jumped at the opportunity to end hostilities. See the highlights of the duel in the video above.
In French please!
Giorgi was obviously proud of her performance in her post-match interview, which she took the trouble to do in French, much to the delight of the audience (see in the video below):
“It’s a good week, especially since all my games were not easy, so I’m happy,” she said.
“I am really happy! I’m playing good tennis, ”she added.
Giorgi has indeed still not lost a single round since the start of the event.
His service is on point. Against Gauff, she showed an 80% success rate on her first balls, in addition to winning 65% of rallies when one of them was in play.
Gauff had a roller coaster game on her serve, hitting 74 percent of her first balls, in addition to hitting five aces. However, she won only 59% of the rally when her first ball was in play and she offered 12 break points to her opponent.
Photo credit: AFP
Advantage or disadvantage?
If most of the players have suffered from the oppressive heat this week, Gauff nevertheless arrived spared at this stage of the tournament, she who had previously spent less than 90 minutes on the field.
After her rather expeditious victory (67 minutes) in the curtain-raiser, against Latvian Anastasija Sevastova, the young sensation of 17 years, seeded 15th and 24th in the WTA standings, had reached directly the quarter-finals when the Briton Johanna Konta had withdrawn due to a left knee injury.
In the second round of the competition, Gauff’s presence on the field had also been shortened, to precisely 20 minutes. Ahead 5-0 at first set, she had seen the Russian Anastasia Potapova withdraw.
Giorgi, meanwhile, had been more active. She didn’t last forever, however, winning each of her previous matches in two sets.
– With the QMI Agency
Other results of the day:
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