{"id":9089,"date":"2026-02-20T21:14:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T21:14:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=9089"},"modified":"2026-02-20T21:14:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T21:14:16","slug":"coco-gauff-american-beaten-in-epic-as-elina-svitolina-reaches-dubai-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=9089","title":{"rendered":"Coco Gauff: American beaten in epic as Elina Svitolina reaches Dubai final"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">Ukraine&#8217;s Elina Svitolina upset world number four Coco Gauff to set up a final against Jessica Pegula at the Dubai Tennis Championships.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">American Pegula was the first to win her semi-final, fighting back from a disastrous opening set and early break of serve in the second set to defeat compatriot Amanda Anisimova 1-6 6-4 6-3.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Gauff, 21, had a chance to make it an all-American final on Saturday, but Svitolina recorded a 6-4 6-7 (13-15) 6-4 in an epic encounter that lasted three hours and three minutes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 31-year-old Svitolina had four match points in the second-set tie-break and could not take them, but still managed to win the decider.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It means she is back in the final of the event for the first time since claiming back-to-back Dubai titles in 2017 and 2018.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I was playing like there is no tomorrow, just trying to put all the effort in,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In the men&#8217;s Qatar Open, world number one Carlos Alcaraz maintained his perfect start to 2026 with a 7-6 (7-3) 6-4 victory over Russia&#8217;s Andrey Rublev to move into the final.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ukraine&#8217;s Elina Svitolina upset world number four Coco Gauff to set up a final against Jessica Pegula at the Dubai Tennis Championships. American Pegula was the first to win her semi-final, fighting back from a disastrous opening set and early break of serve in the second set to defeat compatriot Amanda Anisimova 1-6 6-4 6-3.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9090,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}