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It was the fourth meeting between Japan's Osaka and Gauff, who
finished runner-up in her maiden Grand Slam final at this year's
French Open, with the American levelling the head-to-head record
at 2-2.
Gauff did not allow a single opportunity on her serve in the
opening set, with a sole break of Osaka's delivery enough for
the American to take it.
She dominated the twice Australian and U.S. Open champion in the
second set to go 5-1, 40-0 up before the 24-year-old Osaka
turned things around.
Osaka saved four match points to hold serve and then broke
Gauff, who committed two double faults, on her first opportunity
in the eighth game.
Osaka saved three more match points for her next service hold to
narrow the deficit to 5-4 before Gauff converted her eighth
match point with another big serve.
"Even though I was up 5-1, 40-0 I knew I didn't have the match
in the bag yet and she proved that," Gauff said.
"When you play Naomi she can play lights out tennis. I wasn't
too mad. I was just like, eventually it'll calm down and if it
doesn't calm down then it's probably not my day.
"The most proud was how I responded mentally. I could have
easily folded in those couple of double-faults and match points
that I lost. But I kept telling myself, 'another point, another
chance,' and then the music kind of helped on the bench. I was
trying to sing along to the song to get me out of the match."
Next up for Gauff, who is third behind top-ranked Iga Swiatek
and Wimbledon runner-up Ons Jabeur in the Race to the WTA Finals
leaderboard, will be second-seeded Spaniard Paula Badosa.
The WTA 500 tournament in San Jose, California lost its top seed
on Thursday when world number three Maria Sakkari was beaten 6-1
6-3 by American Shelby Rogers.
(Reporting by Sudipto Ganguly in Mumbai, additional reporting by
Nick Mulvenney in Sydney; editing by Peter Rutherford)
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