Coco Gauff and Belinda Bencic arrive at Wimbledon with their rivalry at a new kind of pressure point. Both needed three-set wins in the third round, and now they meet on grass for the first time with a quarterfinal place on the line.
Gauff had to survive a second straight scare just to get here, backing up her escape from Solana Sierra with another tough win over fellow American Claire Liu. Bencic also went the distance against Anna Kalinskaya, using a third-set tiebreak to close out a match that had been tight throughout.
Gauff’s grind has become the story of her Wimbledon run
Gauff reached the fourth round at the grass-court major for the fourth time after a 6-3, 6-7(5), 6-2 victory over Liu. She had three match points at 6-3, 5-4, but Liu forced a deciding set before Gauff broke in the opening game of that final set and finished the job.
The World No. 1 has now gone 5-0 against fellow Americans on the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz this year. She is also 23-7 in three-set matches at Grand Slams in her career, a mark that stands as the third-best winning percentage in the Open Era.
Bencic keeps finding answers under pressure
Bencic, last year’s semifinalist, beat Kalinskaya 6-4, 4-6, 7-6[6] to reach the Round of 16 for a fifth time. She twice led by a break in the third set before the match went to a tiebreak, where she held on to complete the win.
That result gave Bencic 22 main-draw wins at Wimbledon, which is the joint-most she has recorded at any single tournament in her career. It also extended her strong head-to-head record against Kalinskaya to 5-1 all-time.
A rivalry that has been close, but never on grass
Gauff has won five of the seven meetings between the two players, and five of those matches have gone to three sets. None of their previous meetings, though, have been played on grass, which adds a fresh layer to this Wimbledon clash.
The contrast in their third-round numbers was also striking. Bencic produced 42 winners in her win over Kalinskaya, while Gauff hit 18 winners against Liu, showing two very different paths through the same kind of pressure.
Gauff said reaching the Wimbledon quarterfinals would be a “big accomplishment,” and she believes the hard-earned wins will help her in the second week. “I think I’m not playing my best tennis — I think today, I didn’t serve as well as I did in my last match but I held when I needed to,” she said.
“I definitely feel more confident after the last few matches. Both of the opponents I played are high-level players and very good grass-court players. Belinda will be the same. She’s good on this surface as well, so it will definitely be a tough one.”
That sets up a familiar rivalry with unfamiliar conditions, and both players have already shown they can survive long, tense matches to stay alive at Wimbledon.
