British No. 1 Katie Boulter was knocked out of the China Open by American Coco Gauff in straight sets 7-5 6-2.
A battling performance saw Boulter test the world number 6, but Gauff managed to take a tight first set before wrapping up victory in the second to win comfortably.
Gauff will now face four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka or fellow American Katie Volynets in the last 16.
Gauff is now 2-1 against Boulter in her career, having beaten her in two WTA 1000 events after losing their first meeting in 2021
Boulter beat Taylor Townsend to set up a meeting with former US Open champion Gauff and neither could separate the pair in the early stages, but after breaking Boulter’s serve in the sixth game, Gauff began to make progress.
However, the British No 1 fought back and some strong serves helped him recover from 5-2 down to level at 5-5 before Gauff finally took the first set on three set points in the 12th game.
Gauff enjoyed a bright start to the second set and broke Boulter in the fourth game to advance before securing victory on the second match point.
Third rank Jessica Pegula responded to a marathon first set loss to rally to win 6-7 (9-11) 6-1 6-2 over Veronika Kudermetova in the third round.
Pegula has won 17 of her last 19 matches, including defending her title in Toronto and making the finals in Cincinnati and the US Open. Her only loss was to Aryna Sabalenka, the top seed in Beijing.
“Every time I play him, it’s always tough,” Pegula said. “After I came back from 2-5 in the first set, I knew what to do, I just had to execute in the next couple sets. against him.”
The American made three service breaks in the first set, but also lost three of her own, with Kudermetova winning a lung-busting 20-point tie-break to take the lead.
Losing the tie-break seemed to spur Pegula to life as she found her groundstroke range to break her Russian opponent’s serve twice in each set to take the match in just over two and a half hours. It was Pegula’s first win over 39th-ranked Kudermetova in three attempts.
Pegula will be the 15th seed Paola Badosa in the fourth round after Spain defeated Serbian Rebecca Sramkova 7-5 7-5.
What’s coming to Sky Sports Tennis in October?
- Shanghai Masters – ATP 1000 (October 2-13 – Jack Draper in action)
- Wuhan Open – WTA 1000 (October 6-12 – Emma Raducanu in action)
- Almaty Open, Kazakhstan – ATP 250 (October 14-20)
- Stockholm Open, Sweden – ATP 250 (October 14-20)
- European Open, Antwerp – ATP 250 (October 14-20)
- Japan Open, Osaka – WTA 250 (October 14-20)
- Ningbo Open, China – WTA 500 (October 14-20)
- Erste Bank Open, Vienna – ATP 500 (October 21-27)
- Swiss Indoors, Basel – ATP 500 (October 21-27)
- Guangzhou Open, China – WTA 250 (October 21-27)
- Toray Pan Pacific Tennis Open, Tokyo – WTA 500 (October 21-27)
Sky Sports+ has officially launched and will be integrated into Sky TV, the NOW streaming service and the Sky Sports app, giving Sky Sports subscribers access to more than 50 per cent of live sport this year at no extra cost. Find out more here.
