After scraping past Solana Sierra in the second round, Coco Gauff had another tough outing against Claire Liu at Wimbledon. Though the World No. 7 recorded a 6-3, 6-7, 6-2 victory, her performance was anything but convincing. The fans were also very vocal about her display, and many felt that she just got lucky.

Though being involved in back-to-back three-set matches can be exhausting for any player, Gauff shrugged off any concerns regarding her physical condition.

“I wasn’t really tired after the match two days ago, so I don’t think I will be tired this one,” she said during her post-match interview. “I mean, it’s grass so you’re not playing too many wrong points. So, I guess I had a two-set match on clay and that was more physical than all my matches here. But just probably an ice bath or something. I don’t know, I’m still young so I don’t really wake up sore after a match. I only do that when I lift heavy, but I’m not that late in the tournament. So, maybe like a couple of years from now, I’ll have a more thorough plan.”

Gauff had started the match on a strong note and had clinched the first set rather comfortably. She was in control of the second set as well and had built up a 5-4 lead. She even had three match-points in the bag at one stage, but ended up faltering big time. Liu mounted a remarkable comeback and took the set to a tiebreaker. She forced a decider by clinching the breaker 7-5.

But Liu’s resilience faded in the final set as Gauff clinched it to move into the fourth round. Unforced errors proved to be a major reason behind Liu’s defeat as she committed 57 of them in comparison to Gauff’s tally of 29.

Gauff has never been able to make it to the quarterfinals of the SW19 and can be in for a reality check as she faces Belinda Bencic in the next match. Though Gauff leads the H2H record by 5-2, Bencic has arguably been better than her in the tournament so far.

The World No. 11 had made the semifinals of Wimbledon last season and has looked to be in great touch this year as well. She had comfortably defeated Mika Stojsavljevic 6-2, 6-1 in the first round before recording another comprehensive 7-5, 6-0 win over Xinyu Wang in the next match. Bencic then was involved in a hard-fought match against Anna Kalinskaya, but eventually triumphed 6-4, 4-6, 7-6.

Unlike Gauff, Bencic prefers playing on grass. She has a solid win-rate of 68% on the surface and is considered to be quite a strong player indeed. Though the American may have defeated Bencic in their last three meetings, the latter simply cannot be underestimated when it comes to grass.

Some fans also believe that Gauff doesn’t have the goods to make it past Bencic and were critical of her underwhelming performance againt Liu.

Fans left dissatisfied as Coco Gauff edges past Claire Liu at Wimbledon

One of Gauff’s fans was brutally honest and felt that she will have to improve a lot in order to reach the last 8. “As a die hard Coco fan, I’m very worried, much improvement needed if she wants to go to the QF for the first time at SW19. But we’re keeping the faith.”

Another fan described Gauff as “overrated” and remarked that the match against Liu shouldn’t have gotten dragged to the third set. “Having to go 3 sets after your opponent gives you 60 unforced errors (15 games total). So overrated.”

Another fan expressed a similar sentiment and stated that Gauff wouldn’t be getting the help of unforced errors when she comes up against Bencic. “Hopefully Bencic will not give her 60 unforced errors. Gauff is a commercial & so far overrated.”

There was also a fan who felt that Bencic will prove to be too good for Gauff if she doesn’t improve. “Bencic will devour her.”

Finally, a fan even claimed that Gauff would have been out of the top 50 today if she wasn’t playing against easy opponents often. “If she wasn’t getting no names all the time she would be out of top-50 by now. Can’t see her winning Bencic.”

Will Gauff be able to defy the odds against Bencic or will she fail to reach the Wimbledon quarterfinals yet again? We will have to wait and see.