{"id":44840,"date":"2026-09-07T13:37:27","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T11:37:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=44840"},"modified":"2026-09-07T13:37:55","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T11:37:55","slug":"gauff-faces-jovic-in-all-american-clash-as-swiatek-zverev-battle-familiar-foes","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/gauff-faces-jovic-in-all-american-clash-as-swiatek-zverev-battle-familiar-foes\/","title":{"rendered":"Gauff faces Jovic in all-American clash as Swiatek, Zverev battle familiar foes"},"content":{"rendered":"<div dir=\"ltr\">The US Open&#8217;s round of 16 continues with a day of blockbuster matches on Monday as former champion Coco Gauff takes on fellow American Iva Jovic, while a resurgent Naomi Osaka faces a trial by fire against second seed Elena Rybakina.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">Iga Swiatek \u200bbraces for a clash with China&#8217;s Zheng Qinwen, who beat the Polish six-time Grand Slam winner in the semi-finals of \u200cthe Paris Olympics, while French Open champion Alexander Zverev will also be in action.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">Gauff&#8217;s attempts to win a second US Open title have ended in the fourth round in each of the last two years. This time, however, the 22-year-old is riding high on an improved serve and \u200bhas gone through her first three matches without dropping a set.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">&#8220;I hit flow state,&#8221; Gauff said about her third-round win over \u200bCristina Bucsa, in which the two-time Grand Slam winner fought back from a break down to win the \u2060second set.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">She had pulled off a similar comeback against Jovic in May, when Gauff lost the first set but managed to edge the \u200bsecond before dominating the third. Gauff said challenging matches and the possibility of defeat kept her on her toes.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;At the end of the day, \u200banybody can lose&#8230; it makes me have my guard up all the time, which makes me play better,&#8221; she said.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">\u2014Reuters\u2014<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":27677,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-44840","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Gauff's attempts to win a second US Open title have ended in the fourth round in each of the last two years.","published_date":"","news_description":"Gauff's attempts to win a second US Open title have ended in the fourth round in each of the last two years.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/44840","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":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/44840\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44842,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/44840\/revisions\/44842"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=44840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}