Coco Gauff Exhilarates Fans with 3-Set Win vs. Caroline Wozniacki at 2023 US Open

Coco Gauff is three wins away from the first Grand Slam title of her career.

The American star ended Caroline Wozniacki's comeback run in New York with a 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 victory in Sunday's round of 16 matchup at the 2023 U.S. Open in Arthur Ashe Stadium. The sixth-seeded Gauff will face the winner of the match between No. 1 seed Iga Świątek and No. 20 seed Jeļena Ostapenko in the quarterfinals.

There was a point when Gauff seemed to be in serious trouble after Wozniacki won the second set and broke to open the third, but the victor rallied back and seized control when the match was hanging in the balance.

Social media loved her performance:

This was the first career match between the 19-year-old Gauff and the 33-year-old Wozniacki because of the latter's temporary retirement.

Wozniacki walked away from tennis in 2020 following a career that included 30 singles titles and an Australian Open championship. The former world No. 1 and two-time U.S. Open finalist gave birth to two children during her time away but announced her return to tennis in an essay for Vogue in June.

While Wozniacki lost her second match in Montreal and first match in Cincinnati upon her return, she found her form at the U.S. Open and lost just one set in her first three matches. She also defeated No. 11 seed Petra Kvitová in the second round.

Gauff proved to be a much more daunting challenge.

The American entered her home country's Grand Slam as a crowd favorite with plenty of momentum after a tournament title in Cincinnati. She also won in Washington D.C., this year, and a major championship seems like the next step of her career.

Gauff's resilience was on full display from the early going when she overcame Wozniacki's break in the first game to win the opening set with relative ease.

Yet Wozniacki has a championship resume and wasn't about to go home without a fight.

She dominated much of the second set and didn't allow Gauff to even reach a single break point. After missing a number of chances, Wozniacki finally broke through on the sixth break point she created and did what was needed to force the decisive third set.

Wozniacki had all the momentum heading into the final set and was dictating the pace by forcing Gauff to chase her shots across the court.

Yet the theme of the afternoon was Gauff's resiliency, and not even Wozniacki's opening break in the third set was going to change that. Gauff won the next six games in dominant fashion and left absolutely no doubt who was advancing by the end.

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*All stats courtesy of the U.S. Open's official website.