Top seed Aryna Sabalenka was knocked out of the Italian Open quarter-finals by China’s Qinwen Zheng, as Coco Gauff booked a semi-final place.

Gauff continued her mastery over Russian teen Mirra Andreeva and returned to the Italian Open semi-finals with a 6-4 7-6 (5) victory on Wednesday in Rome.

The fourth-seeded American’s next opponent will be No 8 seed Zheng, who ousted Sabalenka 6-4 6-3.

The other semi-final at the WTA 1000 clay-court tournament will feature sixth-seeded Italian Jasmine Paolini and unseeded American Peyton Stearns, who won their quarter-final matches on Tuesday.

Gauff, 21, improved to 4-0 against the 18-year-old Andreeva and raised her career record to 11-1 against players younger than her.

“Honestly I don’t think about the head-to-head so much,” Gauff said after finishing her quarter-final win in one hour and 42 minutes. “Especially when you’re playing someone younger, you know that they can improve so much in a little bit of time.

“I mean, I think about my game compared to when I was her age to now, it’s a lot different. At the same time when I go on court, I treat each match like a new match and expect her to be better than the last time we played.”

Gauff, who overcame a 3-2 deficit in the second set, became the youngest three-time semi-finalist (2021, 2024) in the Italian capital since Martina Hingis in 1999.

The decisive tiebreak went back and forth, including a brilliant drop shot by the Russian to make it 5-5, before a couple of errant backhands sealed Andreeva’s fate.

“At the end, my defence, it was tough,” Gauff said. “We were both tight in the tiebreaker, it was whoever could make the last ball. Today some points weren’t my best, but I still managed to be successful.”

Zheng, 22, reached the final four in Rome for the first time after quarter-final exits in 2023 and 2024. She struck four aces and won 82 percent (28 of 34) of her first-service points in the 97-minute win over World No. 1 Sabalenka.

Zheng saved all five break points and converted three of her 10 break chances, including the deciding game on her second match point.

Tensions got the best of Sabalenka early in the second set when she yelled at a spectator to “shut the (expletive) up,” prompting a warning from the chair umpire for an audible obscenity.

Zheng defeated Sabalenka for the first time in seven meetings and reached her first semi-final of the season.

“It’s been a long time I haven’t arrived in semi-finals,” Zheng, the Paris Olympics gold medalist, told Sky Sports Tennis after the match.

“It was not easy for me because at the beginning of the year I had some struggles with my arm.

“So right now I’m just perfectly in shape and trying to play better tennis all the time.”

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