Coco Gauff won in an all-American clash against good friend Jessica Pegula from one set down to make it to her maiden Wimbledon semi-finals. Gauff won the match in 1 hour and 48 minutes, 4-6, 6-3, 6-3.
Gauff, the two-time Grand Slam champion, is the highest-ranked player left in the women’s singles draw. She was on her back foot from the start against Pegula, who broke her in the opening game.
Coco got things under control in the second set, but she barely made it through as she survived the two break points in the opening game and reduced the number of unforced errors as she fought back to break Pegula for 5-3 and held serve.
Gauff led the match for the first time when she broke Pegula to take a 2-1 lead in the final set. Jessica broke back to 3-3, but Coco replied with an immediate break for 4-3 while holding serve, after which Pegula fell at the first match point.
“Pretty insane, honestly” was Gauff’s immediate reaction to the win. “Considering how I hadn’t won a match on grass in two years before this tournament I’m definitely just really happy with how I played today.”
“It feels really special considering the results I’ve had of late and just especially on this surface.”
“I’m able to relax a bit because, I feel regardless of how the rest of this tournament goes, I really think I’ve found a bit of a breakthrough on grass.
“Obviously I’m not satisfied. I want to go all the way.”
The 22-year-old will next face Karolina Muchova for a place in Saturday’s final.
Pegula praised Gauff for raising her game in the second half of the match, while admitting there were lots of things she could’ve done differently.
“Obviously, in hindsight, it’s always easier to say that,” Jessica said.
“I felt like there were some patterns that I didn’t really stick to, now that I’m kind of like digesting,” she added. “There’s definitely probably some patterns I wish that I would have trusted a bit more. Then I don’t think I served my best. I thought I served OK, but I think she served a little bit better. There are just some things I wish I did differently on my serve.”
“I think maybe I was overthinking it a little bit and should have just trusted what I thought I should have done,” she continued. “Instead, I was getting caught and allowing her to get more freedom on her serve.”
“From the ground, I always play flat. That doesn’t really change much. I think that’s why sometimes I can give her a lot of trouble. I think maybe at the end I should have maybe changed up the pace and sliced a bit more, because I felt like she got onto the pace a bit and started playing much better. Yeah, she was playing well at the end.”
“I mean, there’s just a couple things here and there, like, that you wish you could change, but it doesn’t always mean that it’s going to be a better outcome.”
