Gauff, Fritz drive Team USA into United Cup semifinals with clutch wins

World No. 3 Coco Gauff battled past China’s Zhang Shuai 7-6 (4), 6-2 to give Team USA an early lead in the United Cup quarterfinals on Wednesday. Taylor Fritz followed with a dominant serving performance, defeating Zhang Zhizhen 6-4, 6-4 to secure an unassailable 2-0 advantage for the Americans.

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Champions of the United Cup two years ago, Team USA will join Kazakhstan on the crosscountry flight to compete in the semifinals in Sydney. 

Gauff set the tone for the United States on New Year’s Day in Perth, opening the United Cup quarterfinals with a gritty comeback against Zhang Shuai. The 20-year-old American erased three early breaks to take a hard-fought first set before cruising to victory.

Zhang, stepping into singles action after China’s group-stage standout Gao Xinyu was sidelined by injury, delivered inspired play, but the 35-year-old veteran ultimately couldn’t hold off Gauff.

With her flat groundstrokes and aggressive baseline positioning, Zhang kept Gauff pinned behind the baseline with her depth of shot. She confidently broke Gauff in the first game of the match but, as would be her undoing in the opening set, failed to consolidate her break. Zhang broke Gauff three ties in the opening set, but was broken back each time, including as she served for the set at 6-5. 

“The harder I hit, the harder she was hitting,” Gauff said. “I felt like I couldn’t get her on defense. She was playing so aggressive on me and I felt like I had to go more on my second serves, which brought in more double faults, but if I just put it in it was a return winner. So I had to take my chances.”

Gauff reeled Zhang in and played a superb tiebreak to secure the first set after 59 minutes, capping it with a perfect lob winner to set up her set points. She carried that momentum into the second set, jumping to a 3-0 lead and holding serve to seal the hard-fought victory in 1 hour and 34 minutes. The win improved Gauff’s record against Zhang to 3-0.

“Against Shuai, I had to hit an ace to win the point,” Gauff said. “She was playing amazing tennis out there. Dennis [Kudla] was saying I digged it out — and that’s what it felt like. I was literally on the ground for most of the match.”

Fritz, ranked No. 4 in the PIF ATP Rankings, dropped only four points on serve during his 1-hour, 19-minute win.

“Coco did such a good job putting us ahead and giving me the chance to come out and put us through,” said Fritz, who leveled the pair’s Lexus ATP Head2Head record at 1-1.

“There was a little bit of pressure because I didn’t want to be the one who loses it for the team after Coco won all her matches this week. I played a really solid match. Really happy with it.”