Coco Gauff overcame late nerves to beat Maria Sakkari 7-6 (1), 6-2 and reach the round of 16 at Indian Wells on Monday, as her fellow American Madison Keys held off Elise Mertens 6-2, 6-7 (8), 6-4.
Gauff, the No. 3 seed, was in fine form until the final game, when she produced six double-faults before closing it out on her sixth match point. She will next play Belinda Bencic.
“Except the last game I thought I played a great match. Just trying to look at the positives,” Gauff said after securing the win with a forehand winner. “Obviously I was a bit disappointed with the last game but that’s just the perfectionist in me.”
Gauff had revenge on her mind in front of the home crowd after losing to Sakkari in the semifinals of last year’s BNP Paribas Open, and showed her mettle as she won six points in a row to triumph in the first-set tiebreak.
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After trading breaks again early in the second set, Gauff broke Sakkari to love in the fifth game and looked ready to run away with the momentum from there.
But the serving struggles she has fought mightily to overcome undermined her best efforts toward the end, and she was forced to save four break points in the final game to keep it to two sets.
“Always an honor and privilege to play in front of this crowd,” said Gauff, giving credit to the partisan U.S. crowd that powered her across the finish line in the California desert.
Earlier in the day, Keys saved 12 of the 15 break points she faced to secure her 14th straight match victory, despite letting four match points slip through her fingers in the second set.
The fifth-seeded Keys, who lost to Mertens in their two previous meetings, sent over five aces to set up a fourth-round meeting with the winner of a match between American Emma Navarro and Donna Vekic of Croatia.
Reuters contributed to this report.
