Gauff beats Bencic and a curfew to reach first Wimbledon quarters

LONDON: Coco Gauff reached her first Wimbledon quarter-final late on Sunday, overcoming Switzerland’s Belinda Bencic 4-6 6-3 6-4 and Wimbledon’s 11 pm curfew by ​two minutes in a topsy turvy match under the roof on Court One.

Neither player ‌was at her best after a long wait to come on court but, while 11th seed Bencic, 29, started the steadier, seventh seed Gauff, 22, proved the more adventurous, hitting 35 winners to ​Bencic’s 19 though she also produced 46 unforced errors and nine double faults.

“I’m ​super happy to be in the quarters finally - I don’t know how ⁠many tries it’s been,” Gauff, who will now face fellow American Jessica Pegula, said ​in a hurried courtside interview.

Bencic, a semi-finalist here last year and Olympic champion in 2021, ​took the first set on her third set point when the erratic Gauff dumped a return into the net.

Gauff, a favourite with the Wimbledon crowd since she reached the fourth round as a bubbly ​15-year-old in 2019, found her range in the second set, breaking Bencic’s serve twice ​and dropping her own only once. She produced a drop shot and an exquisite lob to take ‌the ⁠match into a third set.

Playing some inspired tennis and finding the corners of the court, Gauff, twice a Grand Slam champion, had Bencic on the back foot in the third set.

With the clock ticking down to Wimbledon’s 11 pm closure deadline, Gauff set up match ​point with a smash ​and won the ⁠battle with a big serve that Bencic could not return.

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“I was looking at the clock in the last service game and on ​that match point I was going for serve and volley as ​I was ⁠wanting to end the point.

“I’m not used to racing for time as we’re not used to having to finish by a certain time.”

The All England club is in a residential district ⁠of ​southwest London and has a strict curfew.

Gauff said she ​was hungry for more after finally reaching the quarter-finals.

“Even though it was a tough match I feel this was ​my best match of the tournament,” she said.