American tennis star Emma Navarro continued her impressive showing at the US Open on Tuesday. Fresh off of her upset win against fellow American Coco Gauff in the Round of 16, Navarro was able to rally to defeat Spain’s Paula Badosa 6-2, 7-5 in straight sets to move onto the semifinals of the Grand Slam tournament.
It marks the first time in Navarro’s career that she has reached a semifinal round of a major tournament. Navarro previously had advanced to the quarterfinals of Wimbledon earlier this year before falling to Italy’s Jasmine Paolini.
After Navarro won the opening set in convincing fashion, Badosa jumped out to a 5-1 advantage in the second set, and looked to be on the verge of forcing a third. However, Navarro rallied to win the next six games as she tallied 24 of the final 28 points of the second set.
“After I got it back to 5-2, I kind of had an inkling that it might be two sets,” Navarro said following her quarterfinal win. “I just wanted to stay really tough and stick in there. Even if I did lose the second set, I wanted to set the tone for the third set. Just really happy with my performance today.”
Navarro was able to win five of her eight break-point opportunities, while also winning 39 service points.
Over the weekend, Navarro pulled off an upset victory against Gauff on Sunday. She topped the No. 3 seed 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 in the Round of 16 matchup to move on to face Badosa on Tuesday. Gauff was the defending US Open champion as she won the 2023 installment of the Grand Slam tournament.
Now Navarro will face the winner of No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka and No. 7 Qinwen Zheng, who will face off on Tuesday evening.
