Coco Gauff's Australian Open Run Ends in Quarterfinals

Coco Gauff's quest for a maiden Australian Open title was ended by Spain's Paula Badosa, who upset the American in straight sets, 7-5, 6-4 in their quarterfinal on Tuesday.

At times it felt like Gauff was facing two opponents; the 11th seed Badosa and herself, as she hit a staggering number of unforced errors, and struggled to control her serve.

Gauff couldn't find rhythm with her racket, or on her serve. Errors, errors, errors. That'll be the takeaway for Gauff coming out of this quarterfinal loss -- and tournament. She hit more unforced errors than four of her five opponents in Melbourne, and continued to rack up double faults in what was wayward afternoon against Badosa.

Of course, that can happen when you dictate play and the match hinges on your racket, but against Badosa the errors came home to roost in a big way. She hit 41 unforced errors, including a tournament-high 28 on her forehand.

Gauff also leads the women's side of the tournament for double faults, having hit 35, more than double the amount of the next highest quarterfinalists (Emma Navarro has 17; Elina Svitolina and Madison Keys, 15).

Her live-by-the-serve, die-by-the-serve style of play often works, the power and ability to send down aces does win her a lot of free points on her serve. But against Badosa, in the crucial second set, Gauff was serving at just 56%, and was winning only 24% of points on her second serve, a recipe for disaster so late in the tournament.

Gauff continues to work on her mental game. Gauff was reasonably circumspect in her postmatch press conference, saying she was "obviously disappointed, but not completely crushed."

Something she's been trying to work on over the past six-to-nine months has been detaching herself from the expectations of others, and instead focusing on her own, internal expectations.

As for her immediate future? Gauff indicated she's not going all-in on ranking points this season, instead looking at the majors as the biggest goals for 2025.

"I'm going to go home and take a break. I've been playing a lot of tennis basically since the end of last year. So, yeah, take like a week off or something like that and then get back to work and get better," she said of her next few weeks.

"I don't think Doha and Dubai is a priority... Obviously the next thing is French Open, so try to progress for that."

Don't discount Badosa. The former world No. 2 says she's playing even better tennis now than before her wretched run with a back injury in 2023 and 2024 which resulted in her dropping way down the rankings outside the top 100.

And it's shown, not just against Gauff but all tournament. The Spaniard has been pushed to three sets just once this tournament, against Marta Kostyuk in the third round, and has otherwise looked extremely comfortable thus far.

"Do I feel as if I'm back where I belong? Yeah, of course," she said after the match on Tuesday. "I mean, since I came back last year here in Australia, my goal, I said it here last January, I wanted to be the comeback of the year. I achieved that. When I started this year, I also said I want to be one of the best players in the world and prove that, show that, and be consistent. That's my goal for this year also."

It's her first career major win against a top 10-ranked opponent (she was 0-3 entering today), and now into her first major semifinal, Badosa has the opportunity to become the first Spanish woman to make a Slam final since Garbine Muguruza in 2020 here in Melbourne.

She will face either Aryna Sabalenka or Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the semis on Thursday.