Coco Gauff's Epic Comeback at US Open 2023
Coco Gauff was staring at the exit.
A set down. Outplayed. Two match points against her. Mirra Andreeva swinging freely, the Arthur Ashe crowd stunned into a nervous murmur.
And then the defending US Open champion dug in, again.
Gauff turned what looked like a rout into a knife-edge epic, saving those two match points and hauling herself back to beat the 17-year-old Russian 2-6 7-6 (9-7) 6-2, booking a semi-final date with incoming world number one Elena Rybakina.
From blitzed to breathing
For 26 minutes, this was a mismatch.
Andreeva bullied Gauff off the court in the opening set, taking it 6-2 with the kind of clean, fearless hitting that has made her one of the most dangerous teenagers on tour. Gauff’s serve wobbled, her forehand leaked errors, and the fourth seed looked rattled by the pace and precision coming at her.
The American needed something – anything – to slow the storm.
She found just enough. The second set turned scrappy, fragmented, full of half-chances and missed opportunities. Gauff twice went up a break, twice Andreeva reeled her back in. The rallies grew longer, the tension heavier. This was no longer about ball-striking. It was about nerve.
The set spilled into a tie-break that felt like the night’s true battleground. Sixteen points, wild momentum swings, Andreeva edging to the brink, Gauff refusing to blink. Twice the teenager stood a point from the semi-finals. Twice Gauff shut the door.
At 9-7, Ashe erupted. The match had been reset.
Tiafoe’s echo and a champion’s response
Gauff later admitted her mind flashed back to Frances Tiafoe’s comeback win over Alex Michelsen the previous evening, another night session escape act that had lit up New York.
"At the end of the first set I was thinking about Frances and how he came back yesterday," she said. "We all want to do well in front of this crowd. Honestly, I was just trying to leave the court with no regrets."
That mindset showed in the decider.
Freed by the escape, Gauff finally imposed herself. The serve tightened, the forehand found its range, and the court coverage that has become her trademark smothered Andreeva’s attacks. The Russian, who had played near-flawless tennis for a set and a half, suddenly looked human. Errors crept in. Gauff pounced.
The third set raced away from Andreeva. Gauff, roared on by a partisan crowd that had willed her through the crisis points, closed out the match with the authority of a player who knows how to suffer and still survive in New York.
From being blown away to winning 6-2 in the third. From the brink to the last four again.
Back where she belongs in New York
This run marks back-to-back Grand Slam semi-finals for Gauff, a two-time major champion now returning to the US Open’s last four for the first time since lifting the trophy in 2023.
It also locks in a heavyweight final weekend in women’s tennis.
With Gauff, Rybakina, top seed Aryna Sabalenka and third seed Jessica Pegula all through, the top four seeds have reached a major semi-final line-up for the first time since Wimbledon 2009. No chaos draw. No shock interloper. Just the sport’s current power base converging in Queens.
Sabalenka and Pegula booked their places on Tuesday. Gauff and Rybakina followed, each in very different fashion.
Rybakina bends, doesn’t break
Earlier in the day, Rybakina faced her own test.
The second seed dropped a set for the first time this tournament and trailed by a break point in the decider against Zheng Qinwen, a player with enough firepower to trouble anyone on a hard court.
Zheng took the opener 6-3, but Rybakina responded with trademark clarity. She tightened her first-serve numbers, took control of the baseline, and swept through the second set 6-1. The third was tense, Zheng threatening with that early break-point chance, Rybakina shutting it down and edging away 6-4.
It was not flawless. It did not need to be. It was the kind of hard, problem-solving win that underpins a rise to number one.
A semi-final with real weight
Now comes a blockbuster: Gauff against Rybakina, the reigning US Open champion against the incoming world number one, in a stadium that already feels like Gauff’s second home.
Gauff brings the crowd, the grit, and the memory of another escape. Rybakina brings the cleanest power in the women’s game and a growing sense of inevitability about her rise.
One of them will walk into the final. The other will leave knowing this US Open has started to redraw the map at the top of the sport.
On this evidence, neither plans on giving an inch.
