American Alison Riske upset World No. 1 Ashleigh Barty in a fourth-round match at Wimbledon on Monday, while another American, Coco Gauff, saw her dream run end.
Barty won 15 matches in a row and entered with a chance to win consecutive Grand Slam titles following a French Open championship. She won the first set, but Riske stormed back to take down the Australian 3-6, 6-2, 6-3.
“I haven’t been starting out fantastic in all my matches, but I knew I had the confidence that if I could manage my service games I was going to get looks on her serve,” said Riske, who entered the tournament unseeded and ranked 55th in the world. “I had to play aggressive. I had to take it to Ash.”
Riske advances to face Serena Williams on Tuesday in the Wimbledon quarterfinals. Williams downed Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain 6-2, 6-2 on Monday in a dominant 64-minute exercise.
The 37-year-old Williams advanced to the quarterfinals at Wimbledon for the 14th time. She has played a limited schedule this season, battling injuries.
“I definitely feel like I’m getting better and better day by day. But, you know, every match is still super hard,” she said. “Like even today I won a lot of points. It wasn’t like your average 6-2, 6-2 score. There wasn’t too many 40-Love games at all, actually.
“I think everyone is also getting better. As the tournament goes on, that’s when the better players are surviving.”
Gauff, the Florida teen who has captured hearts at Wimbledon, fell Monday to seventh seed Simona Halep of Romania, who moved into the quarterfinals with a 6-3, 6-3 win.
Halep took control of the match when she broke Gauff’s serve in the second set to take a 4-2 lead.
In her next service game, Gauff saved two match points to hold serve at 5-3, but the Romanian served the next game for the win to advance to her third quarterfinal in four years. The two walked off the court to a standing ovation.
Halep next will face Zhang Shuai of China, a 6-4, 1-6, 6-2 winner over Dayana Yastremska of Ukraine.
In another stunner, No. 3 seed Karolina Pliskova lost to fellow Czech Karolina Muchova in a 4-6, 7-5, 13-11 epic matchup that lasted three hours and 18 minutes.
With Pliskova’s loss, Barty will retain her World No. 1 ranking. Pliskova came into the match ranked No. 3 in the world, while Muchova was No. 68.
Next up for Muchova is Elina Svitolina of Ukraine, the eighth seed, who defeated 24th-seed Petra Martic of Croatia 6-4, 6-2
— Field Level Media
