Osaka’s Wimbledon dreams ended by impressive Muchova as Gauff reaches semis

In her previous match, Gauff was racing against the clock to get her win over Belinda Bencic over the line before Wimbledon’s strict 11pm cut off, but in the heat of the day against Pegula, it was not a straightforward contest.

Gauff motored to a 40-0 lead in the opening service game, only to follow that up with two double faults and eventually a break for Pegula.

That chaotic four minutes set the tone for the early stages of the match where the unforced error count raced into double figures, while even by the end of the opening set, there were only nine winners in total.

Gauff’s statistics were by far the more inconsistent of the pair, hitting six winners to 17 unforced errors, including four double faults, but as Pam Shriver said on BBC 5 Live, she does not mind “winning ugly”.

When asked about her pointed question to her box, who had stood to applaud her, she said: “If you told me I would be in the semis of this tournament, I’d be [like] ‘you’re funny’. Especially like my match in Berlin, the match last year here, the last two years just not winning anything on here. I think it was just more like how too just because so many three-setters, and it’s like how am I getting out of these matches, just winning them.”

It was with a touch of irony that when Gauff did break in the second set, it was as a result of a double fault by Pegula. It was only her second of the match, while Gauff had made six, but it proved the deciding moment in the second set, after which the score was levelled.

Pegula will be left lamenting what could have been, having had the chance to put herself on track for a win in two sets, she allowed Gauff the time and opportunities to raise her level.