No. 3 seed Coco Gauff came back from a set down to defeat Czech Karolina Pliskova 2-6, 6-4, 6-3 on Wednesday and reach the quarterfinals of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships in the United Arab Emirates.Gauff's victory snapped the 11-match winning streak of Pliskova, a former World No.
1. Two weeks ago, Pliskova won at Cluj-Napoca for her first title since 2020 and has risen from No. 78 to No. 36 in the rankings.The American teen's victory came in one hour, 53 minutes, and she now has won two of three head-to-head matches against Pliskova."I feel like [Pliskova's] been playing well since the start of the year, coming back from injury," Gauff said after the match. "Even though her ranking is probably not where it should be considering the caliber of player she is, I think it definitely felt like a top win for me.
Hopefully I can continue to use that to build my confidence going into the rest of this week."Gauff now has reached at least the quarterfinals in three of her four entries in Dubai and will be playing in her third quarterfinal of 2024 when she meets Russian qualifier Anna Kalinskaya.
It will be Gauff's first clash with Kalinskaya, ranked No. 40.Kalinskaya upset No. 9 seed Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia 6-4, 7-5 on Wednesday in 93 minutes.