Coco Gauff has continued her unbeaten record against Mirra Andreeva to reach the Madrid Open semi-finals.
Gauff was bagelled in her first set in Madrid this year, but has since been able to improve her tennis to achieve her best result at the tournament.
The former US Open champion has overcome many obstacles in the Spanish capital, with Gauff even center stage for the power outage in Madrid.
After beating Andreeva in straight sets, Gauff rated her performance highly, but was also full of praise for her opponent.
Coco Gauff notices one shot Mirra Andreeva has really improved
This is the third time that Gauff has beaten Andreeva in as many meetings, but it was also their first match against one another since 2023.
Since then, Andreeva has won Indian Wells and the Dubai Tennis Championships to join Gauff as a top 10 player.
When speaking about the Russian teenager, Gauff admitted that she noticed how much Andreeva’s serve had improved over the past two years.
“Honestly maybe serve, she is serving a lot better,” Gauff said on the Tennis Channel desk in Madrid. “But we didn’t take any of the stats, because like you said she is a different player since then, so I treated this match as a first encounter meeting.
“Especially when you are playing someone younger, I feel like two years makes a big difference. So just from my experience I know that I was a different player between 16 and 18, so I was like I am going to go into this match and not think about what happened in the past and treat it like a new match.”
Gauff last played Andreeva before their Madrid meeting at the 2023 US Open, with the statistics showing some notable improvements.
This includes Andreeva producing four aces, and upping her first serve percentage against ~Gauff~ .