Coco Gauff has been dumped out of the 2024
Madrid Open after an all-American battle against
Madison Keys with the latter having her best run of the season so far after some injury problems and is into the Quarter-Finals as the World No.3 heads out.
It is a pivotal loss also for the World No.2 spot with Aryna Sabalenka coming into this tournament needing to essentially retain her title to keep it. She will face Danielle Collins later this evening for a spot in the Quarter-Finals and to keep her mission alive. Gauff though won't be able to add to that cause after losing out 6-7, 6-4, 4-6 to the World No.20.
Next up for Keys though will be a difficult clash as she faces the Madrid Open queen in Ons Jabeur who couldn't play last year but won the title the year before and is 14 matches unbeaten. Albeit though for both it is a real confidence boosting week. For Gauff, it is back to the drawing board albeit not after a horror show like against Marta Kostyuk last week in Stuttgart.
Keys was down 4-2 in the deciding set against Gauff, but found a way. It was a real flurry from the former as she held serve and then broke back to level it up. She held pretty simply from there. Albeit in winning the match she had issues as she missed two match points before finally getting over the line on the third. Gauff also is still without a top 20 win this season and has lost three to players ranked inside this portion of the rankings in a damning stat for her season.
In the first set, it was fairly the opposite to the last one as Keys went 5-2 up but was sent all the way to a tie-break but sealed it in the end. Gauff gained more of a control of the second breaking at 4-3 to then hold and go one away and despite missing three set points and allowing another hold, Keys couldn't level up and potentially find a way towards the match until the third and final set.
