By Shrivathsa Sridhar for Reuters in Paris.
Defending champion Coco Gauff was sent spinning out of the French Open as Austria’s Anastasia Potapova claimed a 4-6 7-6(1) 6-4 victory to reach the fourth round on Saturday and stay on course to win her maiden Grand Slam title.
Potapova rattled Gauff with powerful baseline hitting and broke to love in the opening game, before taking a 4-2 lead when the American slipped and dropped to the floor of Court Philippe Chatrier while trying to reach for the ball.
Gauff dusted herself off and won the next two games in front of a sparse centre court crowd, with the attention split between Paris St Germain’s Champions League soccer final with Arsenal in Budapest and Frenchman Moise Kouame in action at Roland Garros.
The 22-year-old raised her game again to take the first set, but Russian-born Potapova immediately ramped up the pressure and targeted the American’s wobbly serve to grab a double break at the start of the second set.
Potapova was on the verge of levelling the match while ahead 5-2 but Gauff moved through the gears to surge ahead by claiming four games in a row, only to lose the next game and then the set in a tiebreak where her serve let her down.
The pair traded breaks in a breathless decider, but world number four Gauff lost her way as Potapova took control and went through in style for a meeting with 22nd seed Anna Kalinskaya in the fourth round.