Paula Badosa ends Coco Gauff's unbeaten run in Aussie quarters

Coco Gauff's unbeaten start to 2025 is over. So are her hopes of winning the Australian Open.

The third-seeded Gauff, 9-0 on the year and unbeaten in 13 straight matches entering the day, was swept by 11th-seeded Paula Badosa of Spain 7-5, 6-4 in the quarterfinals in Melbourne on Tuesday.

The 2023 U.S. Open champion dominated most of the stat sheet but was undone by mistakes. Most notably, she committed six double faults to Badosa's two and nearly doubled Badosa in unforced errors (41-23).

The first 10 games were played evenly, with only two break points (both by Badosa in the third game, won by Gauff). But the 27-year-old Badosa finally broke the 20-year-old Gauff in the 11th game and put the set away in the next game.

Gauff, the third-ranked player in the world, again faltered on her serve, this time dropping serve in the first game of Set 2. She gained it back by breaking Badosa to make it 2-2 but immediately dropped her next service game. Gauff soon fell behind 5-2, a deficit she could not overcome.

"Today I came in, and I wanted to play my best game, and I think I did it," Badosa said after the match. "Coco, at the beginning, she was playing insane tennis, but I'm super proud of the level I gave (Tuesday).

"A year ago, I was here with my back (injury) that I didn't know if I had to retire from this sport, and now I'm here, playing the best in the world. ... I'm in the semifinals, and I never would think that a year later, I would be here."

Badosa, the 2024 WTA Comeback Player of the Year, picked up her first career top-10 victory at a Slam and will next face the winner of the quarterfinal between top-seeded Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus and No. 27 seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia. That will be played later Tuesday.

--Field Level Media