Coco Gauff raised a fist, then wagged her right index finger, responding to, and riling up even more, a loud-louder-loudest Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd that was standing and screaming. Gauff’s U.S. Open opponent, Zhang Shuai, covered both ears with her hands to shield them from what she described later as a “Boom!” of sound.
Gauff and her fans were reacting excitedly to quite a point, one in which the 18-year-old Floridian raced to her right for a defensive forehand, then changed directions to sprint and slide into a backhand that drew a netted volley from Zhang. Just four points later, Gauff was a quarterfinalist at Flushing Meadows for the first time.
