Gauff rallies, outlasts Hercog to reach 4th round
Coco Gauff rallies to defeat Polona Hercog in three sets to advance to the fourth round of Wimbledon. (1:36)
It was easy to forget that Coco Gauff is still just 15 as she stood on the grass of Centre Court, pounding her chest and shouting, “Let’s go! Come on!” to celebrate a 32-stroke point that forced a third set in her match Friday evening at Wimbledon.
Up in the stands, her mom rose to pump a fist and yell, “Yes!” Thousands of spectators jumped out of their seats, roaring. By then, Gauff already twice had been a point from losing in the third round to Polona Hercog of Slovenia.
Most players, no matter the age, would not be able to find their way out of that sort of a deficit on this imposing of a stage, would not be able to handle that sort of stress and figure out a way. Gauff is, quite clearly, not most players. That much has been established. How far can she go, both this fortnight and in the future? The tennis world is watching, waiting to find out.
That Gauff, ranked 313th and facing another unseeded player, was scheduled to appear at Wimbledon’s main stadium says plenty about what a sensation the Floridian already is. That she won this match, and how she did — erasing a pair of match points and coming back to beat the 28-year-old Hercog 3-6, 7-6 (7), 7-5 — offers some insight into what Gauff might become.
“Right now, I’m just super-relieved that it’s over,” said Gauff, who will face former No. 1 Simona Halep in the fourth round Monday. “I always knew that I could come back, no matter what the score is.”
As it is, Gauff was the youngest player to qualify for Wimbledon in the professional era, winning three matches last week against higher-ranked women in the preliminary rounds.
Then, by upsetting five-time champion Venus Williams, 39, in the first round of the main event, Gauff became the youngest woman to win a match at the All England Club since 1991, when Jennifer Capriati reached the semifinals at 15.
Next came a win against 2017 Wimbledon semifinalist Magdalena Rybarikova, who is 30.
Against Hercog, who is ranked 60th and is now 0-4 in third-round matches at majors, Gauff dropped a set for the first time this tournament, then trailed 5-2 in the second.
With Gauff serving at 30-40, Hercog was a point from victory. But the teen conjured up a backhand slice winner that dropped right on the chalk.
“I’m happy that the slice down the line went in,” Gauff said.
After her aggressive style paid off there, it was Hercog who really went into a shell, playing cautiously and making mistake after mistake. A big one came when Hercog served for the match at 5-3 and held her second match point: She double-faulted.
Coco Gauff says the crowd at Centre Court was “amazing” after battling her way to a 3-6, 7-6 (7), 7-5 win to advance at Wimbledon.
Eventually they headed to a tiebreaker, Gauff’s first at a tour-level event.
Yet another reminder how new all of this is for her. Her play then offered yet another reminder how capable she is of handling it all. “We’ve been working on her poise all year,” Gauff’s father, Corey, said earlier in the week. “After that comes together, then you really can improve your game, because when you’re poised, you’re not that emotional. You can troubleshoot.”
Also in the women’s draw, third-seeded Karolina Pliskova defeated Su-Wei Hsieh 6-3, 2-6, 6-4, and 14th-seeded Caroline Wozniacki lost to Zhang Shuai 6-4, 6-2. In a match between two former top-ranked players, Halep beat Victoria Azarenka 6-3, 6-1 on Centre Court.
Wozniacki was leading 4-0 in the first set and also broke Zhang in the opening game of the second before losing four straight games. The Dane repeatedly grew frustrated with the result of Hawk-Eye challenges, complaining to the chair umpire on several occasions that the calls made by the review system were wrong.
“I thought there was a few ones that I saw way differently,” Wozniacki said. “But it is what it is. You can’t really change a Hawk-Eye call.”
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.