Marta Kostyuk defeated No. 3 seed Coco Gauff 3-6, 6-4, 7-6(6) on Friday at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix to claim her second victory against a Top 5 player in less than a month.
The two-hour, forty-four-minute victory is the most recent high point in a 2024 campaign for the Ukrainian that has only gotten better. At the Australian Open in January, the 21-year-old made it to her first Grand Slam quarterfinal. When Kostyuk overcame Jessica Pegula in the San Diego Open quarterfinals in February, it became her first Top 5 triumph. The Ukrainian completed a semifinal run at Indian Wells in March, which propelled her to a career-high ranking of No. 26.
It was an underdog day in Stuttgart on Friday as No. 8 seed Marketa Vondrousova defeated No. 2 seed Aryna Sabalenka after falling behind in the first set, while Italy’s Jasmine Paolini came dangerously close to defeating No. 4 seed Elena Rybakina. Kostyuk’s upset of Gauff completed the day’s events.
Kostyuk’s performance, though, may have been the most heroic of all. Usually erratic in the face of difficulty, Kostyuk instead fortified herself to force a third set despite trailing 6-4, 4-2. She came back twice in the championship match: once at 3-1 down and again at 6-5 when it appeared the American would win after saving three match points in the tenth game.
After the Ukrainian led 6-2 in the tiebreak, there were four more opportunities to win, but two lengthy rallies—the most significant of which was Gauff’s failure to make a forehand passing shot at the net at 6-6—helped drive Kostyuk over the finish line.
Additionally, it was Kostyuk’s first-ever victory over Gauff and a reversal of the outcome of their quarterfinal match in Melbourne, where Kostyuk had fought back to force a final set, which Gauff won in an equally spectacular three sets.
Kostyuk has spent almost to nine hours on the court in order to go to her third semifinal of the year. The Australian Open finalist Zheng Qinwen was defeated by the Ukrainian in the second round, 6-2, 4-6, 7-5, only after the former tournament winner and notoriously difficult German Laura Siegemund was lost in her opening set after more than three hours of play. The Ukrainian saved an incredible five match points to win the match.
Kostyuk’s next opponent to try to qualify for the final is Vondrousova. The Czech and the American were supposed to play in the second round of Indian Wells before Vondrousova withdrew, but the Czech won their lone previous meeting in Billie Jean King Cup play last year.
