Coco Gauff’s bid to change into the youngest Australian Open champion since 1997 gathered tempo Friday with a straight-sets win over fellow American Bernarda Pera.
The 18-year-old received 6-3, 6-2 on Rod Laver Arena to arrange a last-16 conflict towards both the 2017 French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia or Ukrainian Kateryna Baindl.
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A maiden Grand Slam title for seventh seed Gauff would make her the youngest Melbourne champion since a 16-year-old Martina Hingis 26 years in the past.
Gauff headed into the primary main of the 12 months on a excessive after successful her third WTA title on the Auckland Classic earlier this month.
She admitted she “got lucky” in her tight second-round victory over Emma Raducanu in a battle of tennis prodigies.
But Gauff let her racquet do the speaking in her first assembly with power-hitter Pera, relentlessly absorbing some late stress from the world quantity 41 when serving for the match at 5-2.
“She was hitting the ball really hard,” stated Gauff, who this week grew to become the primary lady to register 100 tour-level wins earlier than her nineteenth birthday since Caroline Wozniacki in 2009.
“So I was trying to hang in there and take the ground when I could.
“Last season she had a really long match streak so I knew she would be a tough player to beat, so I’m glad to be through to the second week.”
Gauff is one in all two youngsters left within the girls’s draw. The different is 17-year-old Linda Fruhvirtova, who performs Marketa Vondrousova in an all-Czech third-round conflict on Saturday.