Gauff cruises past Kostyuk to reach second Cincinnati semi-final since her 2023 title run
Coco Gauff brushed aside Marta Kostyuk to reach a second Cincinnati semi-final since her 2023 title run, needling the crowd afterwards with a cheeky nod to a chant in her honor.
Coco Gauff, Cincinnati 2026 | © Jeff Dean /Wick Photography for Cincinnati Open
American Coco Gauff, the No 4 seed, eased past Ukrainian Marta Kostyuk, the No 10 seed, 6-2, 6-2, in 71 minutes, to reach the semi-finals of the Cincinnati Open on Saturday night.
Gauff will next face Czech Sara Bejlek, the No 35-ranked semi-finalist who has beaten three Grand Slam champions this week – Barbora Krejcikova, Aryna Sabalenka and Madison Keys – to reach her maiden WTA 1000 semi-final.
Gauff broke three times in the first set, racing to a 3-0 lead and serving for it at 5-1, before dropping her own serve once and closing it out 6-2. The pattern repeated in the second: Gauff broke twice more to lead 4-0, then served it out at 6-2 after leading 5-2. Gauff broke serve six times from 11 chances.
Gauff’s second semifinal in Cincinnati
Kostyuk’s night session was undone largely by her second serve – she won only 21 percent of those points and put down eight double faults, against a single double fault from Gauff.
Their head-to-head gave little warning of such a lopsided scoreline. Gauff leads the series 3-2, but three of their five previous meetings went to three sets, including a deciding-set tiebreak at 2024 Stuttgart. Saturday’s straight-sets result was by some distance the most one-sided of their rivalry.
It is Gauff’s fifth WTA 1000 semi-final of 2026 and her second in Cincinnati – the last time she reached this stage, in 2023, she went on to win the title. The win was her 38th of the season, and she has now taken 12 of her last 14 matches.
