Coco Gauff faced more than her fair share of adversity in her eventual third-round victory at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships on Wednesday.
She served eight double faults and was broken three times in losing a 6-2 first set against a red-hot Karolina Pliskova, winner of her last 11 matches (not including the walkover she gave to Iga Swiatek in the semifinals last week in Doha due to a back injury.)
Serving up 4-2 in the second set, at deuce, Gauff found herself intwined in a prolonged disagreement with French umpire Pierre Bacchi after her successful Hawk-Eye challenge proved her first serve did, indeeded, land in. Bacchi gave Pliskova the benefit of the doubt (her return on the stretch had found the bottom of the net) that she was hindered by the incorrect call, and awarded Gauff another first serve. Gauff thought the incorrect call from the line umpire came after Pliskova hit the return, and felt she should've been awarded the point.
Her repreated requests to see the tour supervisor were denied—the supervisor can only rule on matters of incorrect interpretation of tennis law, not matters of fact as in this case—and eventually, the American retreated back to the baseline to serve again.
But about an hour or so later, Gauff was looking at the mid-match incident with the glass half-full: She said it was, in a way, the spark she needed to turn around what became a 2-6, 6-4, 6-3 victory—her 12th of 2024—in one hour and 53 minutes.
"I think it fueled me. I want to watch back the video, I feel confident that [the call] was after [Pliskova hit the return]," Gauff said in her on-court interview. "But, it's OK, it's just one point. That happens in tennis. Players make mistakes, everybody makes mistakes, if it was. It kind of went up from there, for me.
"I think I was trying to tell myself to stay calm the next point. Sometimes, I get angry and I go for too much. I was just trying to let that not be the turning point for the set. ... Maybe I dragged it out a little longer than I needed to, but I did what I felt was best in that moment."
Gauff eventually won the replayed point with a first-ball backhand winner, and held serve in that game for 5-2. Though she failed to serve out the set at 5-3, she broke Pliskova in the set's 10th game to send the match the distance. The first seven games of the final set went with serve before Gauff broke Pliskova in the penultimate game, and served out victory on her second match point. She saved all four break points she faced in the final set: two in the first game, and two more in the last. She now leads former world No. 1 Pliskova in their all-time head-to-head, 2-1.
Gauff has bounced back in the Middle East after a second-round exit in Doha last week against Katerina Siniakova, and will next face Australian Open quarterfinalist Anna Kalinskaya, who upset No. 9 seed and former Dubai champion Jelena Ostapenko 6-4, 7-5, for a spot in her third semifinal in four tournaments played this year.
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