Gauff, who is bidding to become the first woman to win back-to-back titles at the WTA 1000 event, had battled through three-setters in the previous two rounds and had to overcome stiff resistance from the German.<\/p>\n
“I’m happy with how I played today. She’s a tough opponent, she hit a couple of great shots on the run,” Gauff said.<\/p>\n
“I think I need to stay confident in my game and not be too passive when I have the lead. I played one passive point in this match, but otherwise I played well.”
\nIt was a fast and furious start to the first set as both players fired off a string of winners and traded early breaks as the momentum swung wildly.<\/p>\n
Following a run of five straight breaks of serve it was defending champion Gauff who finally seized control, taking a 5-3 lead when Lys sent a backhand wide and then consolidating to clinch the first set.<\/p>\n
The world number three appeared to have found her range on serve in the second set and eased through a couple of holds, but a brief wobble and a few double-faults from the American added some late drama.
\nServing for the match at 5-4, however, Gauff held her nerve to close out the win in an hour and 28 minutes.
\nThe two-times Grand Slam champion next faces either compatriot Amanda Anisimova or Italian Jasmine Paolini, who meet in the second quarter-final on Thursday.<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":12024,"template":"default||default||default||default","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-12023","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Coco Gauff put down a spirited challenge from 66th-ranked Eva Lys to earn a 6-3 6-4 victory in Beijing this Thursday and reach the China Open semi-finals for a second successive year.||Coco Gauff put down a spirited challenge from 66th-ranked Eva Lys to earn a 6-3 6-4 victory in Beijing this Thursday and reach the China Open semi-finals for a second successive year.||Coco Gauff put down a spirited challenge from 66th-ranked Eva Lys to earn a 6-3 6-4 victory in Beijing this Thursday and reach the China Open semi-finals for a second successive year.||Coco Gauff put down a spirited challenge from 66th-ranked Eva Lys to earn a 6-3 6-4 victory in Beijing this Thursday and reach the China Open semi-finals for a second successive year.","published_date":null,"news_description":"Coco Gauff put down a spirited challenge from 66th-ranked Eva Lys to earn a 6-3 6-4 victory in Beijing this Thursday and reach the China Open semi-finals for a second successive year.||Coco Gauff put down a spirited challenge from 66th-ranked Eva Lys to earn a 6-3 6-4 victory in Beijing this Thursday and reach the China Open semi-finals for a second successive year.||Coco Gauff put down a spirited challenge from 66th-ranked Eva Lys to earn a 6-3 6-4 victory in Beijing this Thursday and reach the China Open semi-finals for a second successive year.||Coco Gauff put down a spirited challenge from 66th-ranked Eva Lys to earn a 6-3 6-4 victory in Beijing this Thursday and reach the China Open semi-finals for a second successive year.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/12023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/12023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17837,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/12023\/revisions\/17837"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=12023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}