Italian Open: Coco Gauff storms into semi-final with hard-fought win over Andreeva

In the quarter-finals clash, Gauff overwhelmed Russia's Andreeva in straight sets by 6-4, 7-6(7-5) to set up a mouth-watering semi-final in the women's singles against the winner of the top seed Aryna Sabalenka and Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen.

The 21-year-old, who stormed into the last eight after dominating Emma Raducanu, nullified the Russian's serve with her strong backline game. Despite Gauff's bold play, Andreeva maintained the parity by using the court to her advantage.

With the scoreboard reading 5-4 in the first set, Gauff had the opportunity to break Andreeva's serve, but she fluffed it after her forehand went straight into the net. However, she bounced back and secured two consecutive points to seal the first set in her favour.

The second set was yet again a back-and-forth affair with both tennis stars pushing each other to their limits. The second set went to a tie-break, and Coco took an early 3-1 advantage to take a step closer to the semi-finals.

Andreeva retaliated perfectly with a ferocious smash that stayed out of Gauff's reach to make it 3-2. Gauff mixed up her forehand and backhand play while trying to restore her two-point advantage and created an opening after a lacklustre reply from Andreeva.

She waited for the ball but smashed it past the line, allowing Andreeva to restore parity at 3-3. Gauff sent Andreeva the wrong way to claim the next point, but the Russian brought it level to 5-5 by disguising her dropshot with pinpoint precision. Gauff wrapped up the fixture by securing two points on the trot and stormed into the semi-finals.

"I'm feeling really good -- and I feel I have a lot to improve on, too. When you're winning matches and you still feel like you have a whole ceiling to reach, it just makes you feel good," Gauff, who is still looking for her first title of the season, said as quoted from Olympics.com.