Coco Gauff tames wind and Anna Karolina Schmiedlova to reach French Open quarter-finals

Coco Gauff stuttered into the French Open quarter-finals with a 7-5 6-2 win over Anna Karolina Schmiedlova – with the comfortable scoreline not quite telling the whole story.

“It’s really windy on this court so it was difficult to hit through the ball,” said Gauff, who now has the chance to avenge her defeat in last year’s final, which Swiatek won 6-1 6-3.

“I hadn’t played on this court all tournament and I didn’t expect for it to be so windy. I played last year and it wasn’t [as windy]. I live in Florida, so I have no excuse.”

Gauff made a blistering start as she broke to love in the opening game, soon securing another break for 5-2 as she picked off the world No. 100’s tame second serve.

But Schmiedlova, who had already seen off 11th seed Veronika Kudermetova in Paris, refused to go away. She upped her game from the back of the court, claiming one of the breaks back before holding to 15 to reduce the gap to 5-4.

Suddenly, Gauff was struggling on serve as a double-fault gifted Schmiedlova a break point, which the Slovakian took when her opponent found the net.

However, Schmiedlova had troubles of her own on serve. She handed the break straight back to Gauff, who then served the set out at the third attempt.

The second set mirrored the first as Gauff raced into an early lead, showing off her extensive arsenal of shots, before suffering a late hiccup.

As Gauff served for the match at 7-5 5-2, she was struck by nerves as back-to-back double-faults presented Schmiedlova with two break points

This time though, the American quickly rediscovered her composure and reeled off four points on the spin to reach the last eight at Roland-Garros for a third straight season.

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