Coco Gauff is in sublime form as of late and that continued through the night at the 2024
Wuhan Open as she took down Magda Linette who was the villain of the piece this week in a 6-0, 6-4 win.
Linette tried to apologise to the crowd for making an insensitive Covid joke which backfired. But her interview got caught short and it just seemed to make matters worse. So from being a pretty auspicious player, she became the villain of the piece.
But Gauff took care of that. She had previously beaten Linette in a three-set win at the 2021 US Open when she was only 17. Of course she has grown up a lot since then and it showed. She was under no threat of losing a set against the Pole who had a good run seeing of Liudmila Samsonova and Daria Kasatkina in a row.
She never lost serve in the win and broke Linette's serve four times to become the first woman through to the semi-finals in Wuhan. She will face either Aryna Sabalenka or Magdalena Frech. Currently the Belarusian leads as of time of writing.
Despite producing a pretty clinical display, Gauff did have some errors as ever with eight double faults and she won less than 50% of second serve points which sits as a concern especially if she faces a lot better opponent in Sabalenka next.
"I'm really happy with how I played," Gauff said. "Obviously a smooth first set. Had chances to maybe close it out in the 5-3 game in the second, but happy I was able to close it out on my serve."
Albeit she won the key points in the key moments winning 12 of 14 at critical points to ease to victory. She struck 19 winners to 13 from Linette as well as 16 unforced errors. This was compared to 22 from her opponent so erased the issues she encountered on second serve.