Coco Gauff Beats Iga Swiatek in Semifinal at United Cup

Sydney: Coco Gauff beat No. 2-ranked Iga Świątek 6-4, 6-2 to force a mixed-doubles match to decide the United Cup semifinal between the United States and Poland on Saturday.

Fourth-ranked Gauff, the French Open champion , evened the matchup at 1-1 at the team event after Hubert Hurkacz beat Taylor Fritz 7-6 (1), 7-6 (2) in the singles opener at Ken Rosewall Arena.

The winner will face Switzerland in Sunday’s final.

The Swiss advanced when Belinda Bencic combined with Jakub Paul in the deciding mixed doubles to defeat Belgium’s Elise Mertens and Zizou Bergs 6-3, 0-6, 10-5.

Bencic has won all four of her singles matches and four in mixed doubles this week in the team event. Paul, who won just six tour-level doubles matches last year, hit several down-the-line winners at crucial moments to lead Switzerland into the final.

“He’s so brave it’s unbelievable,” Bencic said of Paul. “I tell him to go (for it) and he actually goes. It’s crazy."

Earlier, Bencic extended her undefeated season-opening singles streak when she beat Mertens 6-3, 4-6, 7-6 (0) to put Switzerland ahead 1-0. But Stan Wawrinka, who will retire at the end of this season, was beaten 6-3, 6-7 (4), 6-3 by Bergs to send the match to a mixed doubles decider at Ken Rosewall Arena.

The turning point in the Wawrinka-Bergs match came in the eighth game of the third set when Bergs broke Wawrinka’s serve to go up 5-3, then held serve to win the match.

Tournament organizers started play 30 minutes earlier than scheduled with searing temperatures of up to 43 Celsius (109 Fahrenheit) in the forecast for Sydney.

Bencic had won all six sets in her first three matches at the United Cup. She was two games away from another two-set win before Mertens pushed the match the distance.

Then Mertens came from 3-1 down in the third set, saved a pair of break points that would have given Bencic a 4-1 lead, and was two points away from the set win with Bencic serving at 30-30, down 6-5.

But Bencic won the last nine points of the match following a decision to change her racket to a freshly-strung one, taking the match in 2 hours, 37 minutes.

“It feels like 170 kilos fell off my shoulders — I was so stressed; I really wanted to do well, and today I felt so much pressure to not let my team down,” Bencic said.

On the racket change, she said: “My brain turned off and let my instincts take over. I think it was just a feeling."