Cori Gauff showed great fighting spirit in the third round of the 2024 Dubai Tennis Championships against the former world number 1 tennis player who is currently heating up.
The American lost the first set before coming back and beating Czech Karolina Pliskova 2-6, 6-4, 6-3 to advance to the quarter-finals of the Dubai Tennis Championships.
In the first meeting in a hard-court tournament, the 2023 US Open champion claimed victory after 1 hour 53 minutes, so she now leads 2-1 in head to head against Pliskova.
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“I feel like Karolina has played well since the start of this season, coming back from an injury,” said Cori Gauff, who has now won 23 of her last 24 matches against players outside the top 20.
“Even though his ranking might not be where it should be, considering the kind of player he is, so, I think it definitely felt like the best win for me. Hopefully I can continue to use that to build confidence for the rest of the week.”
The American is now the first player in recent weeks to beat Pliskova, who has won her last 11 matches.
Two weeks ago, Pliskova won her first title since the 2020 season in Cluj-Napoca and qualified for the semifinals in Doha last week before injury forced her to withdraw from her semifinal match against Iga Swiatek. Thanks to these results, he rose from 78th in the world to 36th in the world.
Last season’s Dubai Tennis Championships semi-finalist has now reached the quarter-finals or better three times in her four appearances at the tournament. Meanwhile, the quarter-final in Dubai will be his third quarter-final in the 2024 season after he defended his title in Adelaide and qualified for the semifinals of the Australian Open.
In the quarterfinals of the Dubai Tennis Championships, Gauff’s opponent was world number 40 Anna Kalinskaya. This meeting will be their first meeting.
Kalinskaya claimed her fifth win over a top 10 player when she beat ninth seed Jelena Ostapenko 6-4, 7-5. The tennis player who qualified for the quarter-finals of the Australian Open this season needed 93 minutes to overcome the Latvian tennis player.
The 2017 French Open champion, Ostapenko has won 16 matches in the 2024 season, but Kalinskaya converted four of her five break point chances en route to victory.
Kalinskaya caused Ostapenko’s fourth defeat of the 2024 season and was the first time she had lost to a tennis player other than Victoria Azarenka, who had beaten her three times this season.
