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Iga Swiatek and Coco Gauff will have their ninth career meeting on the WTA tour on Saturday in the semi-finals of the China Open. On Friday, both the second seed and third seed made their way past tricky opponents in their respective quarter-finals.
Swiatek was the first of the two to win her match. Caroline Garcia, her opponent, jostled her for a bit before the Pole asserted her way through the match. Swiatek did need two hours and 35 minutes to clinch a 6-7(8), 7-6(5), 6-1 victory.
The Frenchwoman came up with 16 aces for the match which made up for a significant portion of the total winners she hit for the match (46). In comparison, Swiatek had just 30 winners. Nonetheless, Swiatek was able to outplay Garcia, especially in the deciding set, when the latter’s rhythm became more inconsistent.
In that set, the higher-ranked player finished by winning 83% of her first-serve points and 50% of her second-serve points. She also won six of seven points played on return on her ninth-seeded opponent’s second serve.
For the match, Swiatek won 17 more points than Garcia’s 96.
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Gauff faced no such problems when tackling…
