Gauff into last four at Wimbledon after beating former doubles partner Pegula

[p]The ‌seventh seed and two-time Grand Slam ‌winner, now the highest-ranked player left in the women's singles draw, was ‌on the back foot from ⁠the start ‌against a fourth-seeded opponent who broke her in the opening game.[/p][p]In truth, [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/player/gauff-coco/f5BXmEH6/"]Gauff[/a] was fighting herself almost as much as ‌the American number one. Playing in the Wimbledon quarter-finals for the first ‌time, she made 17 unforced errors and served four double faults in the opening set.[/p][p]The 22-year-old got things back under control in the second set, although she still faced two ‌break points in the opening game, and halved ⁠the number of unforced errors.[/p][p]The 2023 U.S. ‌and 2025 French Open winner led for the first time when she broke [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/player/pegula-jessica/KdojxrAR/"]Pegula[/a] ​in the final set but her older opponent was not beaten yet and broke back to 3-3.[/p][image alt="Key match stats" id="982e6659-ca0e-4448-bb98-c2252f59dfd7" credit-line="Flashscore" guid="7260c780-2bc9-4425-8b45-c24d0d60b676" original-width="2160" original-height="2700" /][h2]Gauff going the distance in her matches[/h2][p]Gauff, ​who will face either [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/player/osaka-naomi/MDM4BKiA/"]Naomi Osaka[/a] or [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/player/muchova-karolina/Or4Qa1ye/"]Karolina Muchova[/a] in the semi-finals, replied with another immediate break, then held serve and Pegula fell at the ⁠first match point with a ​return to the net.[/p][p][b]"Pretty insane, honestly," [/b]was Gauff's immediate reaction to the win. [b]"Considering how I hadn't won a match on grass in two years before this tournament, I'm definitely just really happy with how I played today."[/b][/p][p]"Jess is an incredible ‌opponent and person and playing against her is never easy. I'm just happy to get through this one today."[/p][p]Gauff, who has now been taken to three sets in her last four matches and has yet to win a grass tournament, said getting more first serves in was a turning point as well as being calmer in the rallies.[/p][p][b]"In the first set I think I made a little bit too many errors rushing out the rallies a little bit too quickly," she said. "I just felt the last two sets were really ‌great tennis."[/b][/p][embed guid="cefba496-23d1-4dbc-a717-5e0e3e360380" url="https://x.com/Wimbledon/status/2074500339433103816" social-type="twitter" /][p]"I've been going three sets almost every match so I feel like ​when you have that faith in yourself as a competitor, when ‌the match goes the distance and you lose one set, you're not panicking."[/p][p][a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/game/tennis/gauff-c-f5BXmEH6/pegula-j-KdojxrAR/?mid=foo64LL7"]The match[/a] was the first between two female American top 10 seeds at Wimbledon since the Williams sisters, Serena and Venus, met in the final in 2009.[/p][p][b]"After seven years playing this tournament it's finally the first ⁠time I can walk on Centre ⁠Court and I didn't feel nervous," ‌said Gauff. "I don't know if I'm becoming a vet ..."[/b][/p][infobox id="e4d8200d-597f-48d7-83c2-d394f1217426" /]