Coco Gauff overpowered defending champion Iga Swiatek 6-1, 6-1 to reach the Madrid Open singles final for the first time Thursday.
Gauff broke Swiatek’s serve three times in the first set and twice in the second to cruise to a 64-minute semifinal victory over the second-ranked Swiatek at the clay-court tournament.
“The mentality that I had in the whole match was aggressive,” the fourth-ranked Gauff said. “Maybe it wasn’t her best level today, but I think I forced her into some awkward positions.”
The win was Gauff’s first on clay against Swiatek, who holds an 11-4 edge in their head-to-head history. Gauff is now 3-0 against Swiatek since the end of 2024 starting at the WTA Finals.
Swiatek had recovered from losing the first set 6-0 to Madison Keys on Wednesday. But she looked rattled Thursday and, in a rare lapse, was hit with a code violation for an audible obscenity.
“I couldn’t really get my level up,” Swiatek said. “Coco played good, but I think it’s on me that I didn’t really move well, I wasn’t ready to play back the shots with heaviness, and with that kind of game, it was pretty bad.”
The last time Swiatek won two or fewer games in a match, on any surface, was a 6-0, 6-2 loss to Jelena Ostapenko in Birmingham in 2019.
Gauff will face either top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka or Elina Svitolina in the final.
In the men’s quarterfinals, Casper Ruud advanced by defeating Daniil Medvedev 6-3, 7-5 to become the first player born in 1990 or later to reach 30 tour-level semifinals on clay.
The 15th-ranked Norwegian had been 0-3 against Medvedev in his career.
“I looked at our stats last night and saw he beat me on grass, outdoor hard and indoor hard. The last surface was clay, so I thought, ‘Please don’t make it 4-0,'” Ruud said. “I tried to use the surface to my advantage. I thought the level was pretty good from both players. I was impressed with Daniil’s ability to produce power here on clay.”
Ruud will next face Francisco Cerundolo, who rallied to defeat teenager Jakub Mensik 3-6, 7-6 (5), 6-2. Cerundolo had beaten top-seeded Alexander Zverev in the previous round.
In another quarterfinal, fifth-ranked Jack Draper defeated Matteo Arnaldi 6-0, 6-4. Arnaldi had beaten Novak Djokovic in the second round.
The Madrid Open was disrupted Monday because of the major blackout that brought Spain and Portugal to a standstill. More than 20 matches had to be postponed at the Caja Magica tennis complex, creating a packed schedule the rest of the week.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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