The French Open champion, Coco Gauff, was forced to play a close match against Leylah Fernandez before securing her place in the third round of the China Open with a final score of 6-4, 4-6, 7-5.
Gauff, who is defending her title and is one of the favorites in Beijing, managed to overcome a setback in the second set and had difficulty closing out the match in the third. Finally, she managed to break Fernandez’s serve in the twelfth game of the decisive set to secure the victory.
In the next phase, Gauff will face Belinda Bencic, ranked 16th, who defeated Australian Priscilla Hon with a score of 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 in the WTA 1000 tournament.
In other notable results from Sunday, Eva Lys defeated Elena Rybakina, world number 10, with a score of 6-3, 1-6, 6-4. In addition, American McCartney Kessler was leading Barbora Krejcikova with a score of 1-6, 7-5, 3-0 when the Czech player retired from the match.
The tournament is taking place simultaneously with an ATP 500 men’s tournament.
A day after Lorenzo Musetti apologized to Chinese fans, the Italian tennis player secured a straight-sets victory over veteran Adrian Mannarino with a score of 6-3, 6-3 in a second-round match.
Previously, Learner Tien defeated Flavio Cobolli with a score of 6-3, 6-2, thus securing his match with Musetti, who is in ninth place, in the quarterfinals.
For his part, Alexander Zverev, ranked third, defeated Corentin Moutet with a score of 7-5, 3-6, 6-3 and will face Daniil Medvedev in the next round.
