Coco Gauff advances to final after defeating Paula Badosa in a close battle

No. 4 seed Coco Gauff defeated No. 15 seed Paula Badosa of Spain 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 in Saturday’s China Open semifinals, advancing to her second tournament final of the year. The 20-year-old American is the youngest China Open finalist since Caroline Wozniacki (20) in 2010.

In a competitive match where deuce was reached in 10 of 28 games, Gauff pulled out a win after dropping yet another first set, continuing her trend of slow starts. For the second straight match, she opened the first game with a double fault and recorded two more. Despite this, Gauff held serve after battling through two deuces. The play remained neck-and-neck throughout, with each player holding serve to 2-2. Badosa looked sharp, landing difficult shots that scraped the boundary lines. In the fifth game, 26-year-old Badosa was able to gain a service break with the help of another double fault from Gauff. Badosa held serve in the next game, which reached deuce four times. But Gauff did not go down easy.

After holding serve in the seventh game, Gauff and Badosa wrestled for a key eighth game. They traded winners in a drawn-out game that reached 10 deuces. With a perfectly placed drop-shot, Gauff finally pulled out the win. It seemed the win would sway the momentum in Gauff’s favor, but Badosa immediately earned a service break in the following game and also won the 10th game for a 6-4 set win.

Gauff’s struggles carried over into the early part of the second set. She immediately was broken in the first game and dropped the second. Gauff double faulted three times in the third game but was able to hold serve anyway. Gauff’s frustration was visible, seemingly prompted by the crowd’s frequent groans after her service errors. As she entered the fifth game down 1-3, Gauff became more aggressive and the two found themselves in yet another tit-for-tat contest. The score reached deuce six times before Gauff finally won. This seemed to spark a fire within Gauff. Her frustrated looks diminished and she took on a stern, stone-faced demeanor as she dominated the rest of the set, winning 6-4.

“I grew up on the philosophy that the second set is the most important set,” Gauff said in a press conference afterward. “Obviously, I want to win the first set to make my life easier, but I’d rather be able to raise my level in the second set than crash after the first.”

Gauff’s stoic attitude and aggressive play swelled in the third set. She held the first game at love, then quickly gained a service break in the second game. Badosa briefly fought back, capturing a service break of her own in the third game, but her success did not last long. Gauff made fewer mistakes and her confidence seemed to grow as the set progressed. She won just about every rally, as Badosa sent shot after shot into the net and frequently yelled over to her coaches after missed shots. Gauff took the final two games and won the set 6-2.

“I think today I reached some levels where I was playing my best tennis,” Gauff said. “That wasn’t the case for the whole match, but that’s tennis.”

The American advances to her first China Open final despite a slew of service errors throughout her five matches in the tournament, including 37 double faults. Nevertheless, her record in two years at the tournament moves to 9-1.

Gauff has now won 20 WTA-1000 matches this year, her highest tally in a single year. She will attempt to win her first tournament title since January in Sunday’s final against Karolina Muchova of the Czech Republic. The American leads their head-to-head record 2-0. Gauff also holds a 7-1 record in tournament finals.

—Reporting by Egan Ward