NEW YORK — Coco Gauff and Naomi Osaka set up a high-profile showdown between two past title winners in the U.S. Open’s fourth round with victories Saturday.
“Everyone will be watching,” said Venus Williams, a seven-time Grand Slam champion in women’s singles who lost in the first round earlier in the week but — at age 45 — is still around in the women’s doubles bracket with Leylah Fernandez. “That’s what tennis needs.”
Their meeting Monday, with a quarterfinal berth at stake, is a rematch from 2019, when Gauff was a 15-year-old making her main-draw debut at Flushing Meadows and Osaka was the reigning champion.
Osaka won that one in straight sets, then consoled a teary Gauff on the sideline and encouraged her to speak to an Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd that was pulling for the young American.
“I kind of see her as a little sister,” Osaka said Saturday, “so it’s kind of cool to be playing her here again.”