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BEIJING, 7 Oct: Second-ranked Iga Swiatek ended Coco Gauff\u2019s 16-match winning streak as she advanced to the China Open final with a dominant 6-2, 6-3 victory over the U.S. Open champion on Saturday.<\/p>\n
It was the 19-year-old Gauff\u2019s first loss since the quarterfinals in Montreal, a span that included titles in Cincinnati and at Flushing Meadows.<\/p>\n
Swiatek will meet No.22-ranked Liudmila Samsonova in Sunday\u2019s final, after the Russian ousted fifth-seeded Elena Rybakina 7-6 (7), 6-3.<\/p>\n
The Polish player made just four unforced errors in the first set, keeping consis-tent pressure on Gauff\u2019s serve, and made a decisive break at 3-1 to ease through the set in 40 minutes.<\/p>\n
Swiatek maintained her vice-like grip on the match, breaking Gauff at the start of the second set to lead 2-0.<\/p>\n
A medical timeout to have Gauff\u2019s right shoulder assessed didn\u2019t break Swiatek\u2019s momentum as she closed it out to extend her head-to-head record against her rival to 8-1.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really happy with my performance,\u201d Swiatek said. \u201cIt feels like I can play freely again, so I\u2019m really happy. It\u2019s been a while since I felt that way. So, I\u2019ll remember for the rest of my career that even though tougher times may come, in your mind, you can always overcome that. And with hard work, you can achieve it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Samsonova blazed her way to a second WTA 1000 final this year with a straight-sets win as she remained unbeaten against Rybakina in four meetings.<\/p>\n
The Russian player made the first break to lead 5-4, but immediately surrended the advantage as the first set went to a tiebreak. Samsonova finally clinched the set at her third opportunity.<\/p>\n
Samsonova, who hit 33 winners, then made the decisive break in the second set to go up 5-4 and then served out the win in 1 hour 40 minutes.<\/p>\n
Shanghai Masters<\/p>\n
Top-seeded Carlos Alcaraz beat Gregoire Barrere 6-2, 7-5 in the second round of the Shanghai Masters.<\/p>\n
Alcaraz made a fast start against the 73rd-ranked Frenchman, racing to a 4-0 lead in a comfortable first set for the Spaniard.<\/p>\n
Barrere responded in a tighter second but Alcaraz forced a break to take a 6-5 lead and then coolly served out the win.<\/p>\n
Alcaraz next meets 30th-seeded Daniel Evans or qualifier Mikhail Kukushkin.<\/p>\n
In his first appearance in Shanghai since winning the title in 2019, Daniil Medvedev was ruthless as he overpowered 98th-ranked Cristian Garin 6-3, 6-3 for his 60th win of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to try my best, I\u2019m going to try to play more good matches in the tournaments I have left this season,\u201d the third-ranked Medvedev said about his prospects of passing his 2021 record of 63 wins in a season.<\/p>\n
The Russian player can claim a 61st victory against 26th-seeded Sebastian Korda in the third round.<\/p>\n
Fourth-seeded Stefanos Tsitsipas beat qualifier Rinky Hijikata 6-4, 6-2 and 12th-seeded Tommy Paul advanced with a 6-3, 6-0 win over Sebastian Ofner.<\/p>\n
Sixth-seeded Jannik Sinner, fresh from his China Open final win, had a 7-6 (7), 6-2 victory over Marcos Giron. The Italian player\u2019s third-round opponent will be 25th-seeded Sebastian Baez.<\/p>\n
Other winners included 22nd-seeded Nicolas Jarry and Matteo Arnaldi before a rain delay suspended matches on the outside courts until Sunday. (AP)<\/p>\n
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BEIJING, 7 Oct: Second-ranked Iga Swiatek ended Coco Gauff\u2019s 16-match winning streak as she advanced to the China Open final with a dominant 6-2, 6-3 victory over the U.S. Open champion on Saturday. It was the 19-year-old Gauff\u2019s first loss since the quarterfinals in Montreal, a span that included titles in Cincinnati and at Flushing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-225572","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225572\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}