Coco Gauff tops Marta Kostyuk, heads to Australian Open semis

Coco Gauff tops Marta Kostyuk, heads to Australian Open semis،

MELBOURNE, Australia — Coco Gauff hopes to have her “bad” match at the Australian Open sorted before she meets defending champion Aryna Sabalenka in the semifinals.

The 19-year-old US Open winner overcame 51 unforced errors, nine double faults and had just 17 winners to beat Marta Kostyuk 7-6 (6), 6-7 (3), 6- 2 on Tuesday in a quarterfinal match that lasted 3 hours and 8 minutes.

Sabalenka's title defense gained momentum and her 6-2, 6-3 win over No. 9 seed Barbora Krejcikova was her fifth straight set victory.

The extra-long day session pushed the start of the night session past 9 p.m. local time, with Krejcikova serving to kick off the first of two night quarterfinals at 9:09 p.m.

“I played good tennis,” Sabalenka said. “I hope I can continue playing this way, or even better.”

Gauff has won 12 straight Grand Slam matches and is two wins after winning back-to-back major titles, but she had a close match against Kostyuk, a first-time quarterfinalist.

“Today was definitely a C-game,” Gauff said. “I didn't play my best tennis, but I'm really proud that I was able to get through it. Hopefully the bad match will be eliminated and I can play even better.”

Gauff's forehand was particularly vulnerable and Kostyuk took full advantage, rushing to 5-1 only to then show his own fragility with two double faults to return one of the breaks.

She recovered to save a set point at 5-3 before coming back to 5-5. Kostyuk earned another set point in the tiebreaker, but Gauff won it.

The errors continued and even though she led 5-3 in the second set, Gauff was unable to close out the match. She was two points away from victory at 6-5, 40-40, but Kostyuk held on and won the tiebreak 7-3 to tie the match.

The Ukrainian player said she was happy to have reached the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time.

“Very proud of me,” she said. “I won for me today and that's the most important thing. It's just the start of the season. I'm looking forward to what's ahead.”