Sakkari stops Gauff, 16, in Western & Southern Open

Maria Sakkari, playing in San Jose, Calif., last year, dismissed
Coco Gauff 6-1, 6-3 in the first round of the Western & South-
ern Open in Flushing Meadows, N.Y. Photo by Paul Bauman 

Maria Sakkari did Coco Gauff a big favor by withdrawing from the WTA tournament in Linz, Austria, last October. 

That allowed Gauff to advance to the main draw as a lucky loser, and she went on to win her first WTA title at age 15. 

Gauff was not as fortunate today. Now 16, she lost to the 25-year-old Greek 6-1, 6-3 in 65 minutes in the first round of the Western & Southern Open in Flushing Meadows, N.Y.

The tournament, normally held in the Cincinnati area, is being played at the site of the U.S. Open with no fans in attendance because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sakkari, seeded 13th at No. 21, won 84 percent of the points on her first serve (21 of 25) and saved the only break point against her.

It was Sakkari's second match since the WTA tour resumed after a hiatus of almost five months. She fell to 69th-ranked Kristyna Pliskova, the twin sister of No. 3 Karolina Pliskova, 6-4, 6-4 on clay in the first round in Palermo two weeks ago.

"I think I really played a good match," Sakkari, the runner-up in the inaugural Mubadala Silicon Valley Classic in San Jose, Calif., in 2018, said on-court after the match. "I played a match in Palermo, but for me, it doesn't count. It wasn't even a match (there), the way I played. Coming back the way I did, it's really important, and (I take) a lot of confidence from this." 

Sakkari is scheduled to play either No. 33 Yulia Putintseva or No. 36 Zhang Shuai on Monday. 

Former world No. 1 Victoria Azarenka, who won the Bank of the West Classic at Stanford 10 years ago, dispatched 15th-seeded Donna Vekic, a semifinalist in San Jose last year, 6-2, 6-3. 

Azarenka, the Australian Open champion in 2012 and 2013, will face either wild card Sloane Stephens, a Fresno, Calif., product who won the 2017 U.S. Open, or Carolina Garcia of France. 

Amanda Anisimova, 18, ousted 11th-seeded Alison Riske 6-3, 6-3 in an all-American encounter. 

Anisimova, who won her first professional title in the 2017 Sacramento, Calif., Challenger at 15 and reached the French Open semifinals last year, will face another American in the second round on Monday. She will take on either Jennifer Brady, coming off her first WTA title last week in Lexington, Ky., or qualifier Jessica Pegula, the runner-up in the 2012 Sacramento Challenger at 18.

No. 16 seed Dayana Yastremska, ranked 25th at age 20, eliminated 40-year-old Venus Williams, who has won seven Grand Slam and two Bank of the West singles titles, 7-5, 2-6, 7-5.

On the first day of ATP Tour matches since March, winners included wild card Andy Murray and Milos Raonic, who combined to go 23-0 and win five singles titles in the now-defunct SAP Open in San Jose.

Murray, 33, defeated American wild card Frances Tiafoe, who won the 2016 Stockton (Calif.) Challenger, 7-6 (6), 3-6, 6-1. 

Murray, who captured the first of his three Grand Slam singles title in the 2012 U.S. Open, is playing in his first tournament of the year as he continues his comeback from hip operations in 2018 and 2019. He is set to play fifth-seeded Alexander Zverev of Germany on Monday.

The 6-foot-5 (1.96-meter) Raonic, who has struggled with injuries since reaching the 2016 Wimbledon final, hammered 19 aces in a 6-4, 6-4 victory over 6-foot-6 (1.98-meter) Sam Querrey, a 32-year-old San Francisco native.

Bay Area products advance to W&S main draw

Mackenzie McDonald edged Dominik Koepfer in three
tough sets in the first ATP tournament since the men's
and women's tours shut down in March because of the
coronavirus pandemic. File photo by Paul Bauman 

Mackenzie McDonald and CiCi Bellis, wild cards from the San Francisco Bay Area who are rebounding from surgery, won their final-round qualifying matches today in the Western & Southern Open in Flushing Meadows, N.Y.

The 25-year-old McDonald, who was born and raised in the East Bay enclave of Piedmont, edged Dominik Koepfer of Germany 6-7 (0), 7-5, 7-6 (5) in 2 hours, 35 minute in the first ATP tournament since the men's and women's tours shut down in March because of the coronavirus pandemic. Both players have reached the fourth round of singles in a Grand Slam tournament.

Bellis, a 21-year-old San Francisco native who grew up down the peninsula in Atherton, defeated Ysaline Bonaventure of Belgium 4-6, 6-4, 6-1.

Losing today were 24th-seeded Kristie Ahn, a 28-year-old Stanford graduate from Englewood Cliffs, N.J., in the New York area, and wild card Katie Volynets, 18, of Walnut Creek in the Bay Area. 

The Western & Southern Open moved from the Cincinnati area for this year to form a three-week bubble with the U.S. Open, Aug. 31 to Sept. 13, at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.

CiCi Bellis defeated Ysaline Bonaventure in three sets in
the Western & Southern Open, which moved from the Cin-
cinnati area to the site of the U.S. Open because of the
pandemic. File photo by Paul Bauman

Both McDonald and Bellis are now based at the USTA National Campus in Orlando, Fla. Also, both will rise at least 28 places in the world rankings, Bellis to No. 221 and McDonald to No. 243. 

McDonald evened his record against Koepfer, a 26-year-old left-hander ranked No. 92, at 1-1. Koepfer, a former All-American at Tulane in New Orleans, won 5-7, 6-3, 6-2 in the quarterfinals of the $108,320 Dallas Challenger in February.

McDonald made his ATP Tour debut at 18 in the 2013 Western & Southern Open, shocking No. 79 Nicolas Mahut and No. 128 Steve Johnson in qualifying before losing in the first round of the  main draw.

McDonald won his first Challenger title in Fairfield (Calif.), 40 miles (64.4 kilometers) north of Piedmont, in 2017. He advanced to the fourth round at Wimbledon in 2018 and climbed to a career-high No. 57 in April last year. 

Koepfer reached Northern California Challenger finals in 2018 and 2019. As a qualifier, he advanced to the fourth round of the U.S. Open last summer.

McDonald will face Marcos Giron, a qualifier ranked No. 102, for the second time. McDonald won 6-7 (4), 6-1, 6-2 in the second round of a $25,000 Futures tournament in Los Angeles in 2017.

McDonald and Giron, 27, are virtual clones of each other. Both:

–Are California natives. Giron is from the Los Angeles suburb of Thousand Oaks.

–Are small. McDonald is 5-foot-10 (1.78 meters) and 160 pounds (73 kilograms); Giron is 5-11 (1.78) and 170 (77). 

–Won NCAA singles titles while playing for UCLA, Giron in 2014 and McDonald two years later. They were Bruins teammates in 2014.

–Have undergone surgery, McDonald in June last year (hamstring tendon) and Giron in 2015 (right hip) and 2016 (left hip).

Bellis was named the WTA Newcomer of the Year in 2017 after ascending to a career-high No. 35. But she sat out for almost two years, from March 2018 to November 2019, while undergoing three operations on her right wrist and one on her right elbow.

Bellis will face qualifier Oceane Dodin, a 23-year-old Frenchwoman ranked No. 118, for the first time. Dodin has had health issues of her own. After climbing as high as No. 46 in June 2017, she sat out from July 2018 to April 2019 because of vertigo.

The 97th-ranked Ahn, playing two miles (3.2 kilometers) from the hospital where she was born, fell to Leylah Fernandez, a 17-year-old Canadian ranked No. 111, 6-4, 6-1.

Fernandez, a 5-foot-4 (1.62-meter) left-hander, reached the Acapulco final in February, losing to Heather Watson of Great Britain.

Volynets, who won the USTA 18 National Championships last August and turned pro in December, succumbed to Belgium's Kirsten Flipkens, seeded 12th at No. 79, 6-1, 2-0, retired (apparent muscle strain). Flipkens advanced to the Wimbledon semifinals in 2013, vaulting her to a career-high No. 13. 

Volynets scored her first top-100 win on Thursday, shocking No. 91 Monica Puig, a 2016 Olympic gold medalist in singles rebounding from elbow surgery in December. 

Volynets, 18, shocks Olympic gold medalist Puig

Katie Volynets, from Walnut Creek in the San
Francisco Bay Area, beat 19th-seeded Monica
Puig 4-6, 7-6 (4), 6-3 in the first round of quali-
fying for the Western & Southern Open in Flush-
 ing Meadows, N.Y. 2019 photo by Paul Bauman 

Katie Volynets scored her first victory over a top-100 player today.

The 18-year-old wild card from Walnut Creek in the San Francisco Bay Area stunned Puerto Rico's Monica Puig, seeded 19th at No. 91 in the world, 4-6, 7-6 (4), 6-3 in the first round of qualifying for the Western & Southern Open in Flushing Meadows, N.Y. 

The tournament moved from the Cincinnati area this year to form a bubble with the U.S. Open, Aug. 31 to Sept. 13, at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.

Volynets, who won the USTA 18 National Championships last August and turned pro in December, pounded three aces and committed 11 double faults in the 2-hour, 24-minute battle. Puig had zero and six, respectively.

Puig, a singles gold medalist in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, was competing in her first tournament since reaching the quarterfinals in Luxembourg last October, although she played World TeamTennis for the Las Vegas Rollers last month. Puig underwent elbow surgery in December.

Volynets also defeated Shelby Rogers, a 2016 French Open quarterfinalist, in Acapulco in February for her first win on the WTA Tour. Rogers had knee surgery in May 2018 and missed the rest of the season.

Volynets, who will rise at least 23 places in the world rankings to a career-high No. 328 on Monday, is scheduled to meet 12th-seeded Kirsten Flipkens, 34, of Belgium for the first time on Friday at 8 a.m. PDT in the final round of qualifying.

The 79th-ranked Flipkens, a Wimbledon semifinalist in 2013, outlasted Katarina Zavatska of Ukraine 5-7, 7-5, 7-6 (2) in 3 hours, 13 minutes.

Also advancing today were 24th-seeded Kristie Ahn, a 28-year-old Stanford graduate from Englewood Cliffs, N.J., in the New York area, and wild card CiCi Bellis, a 21-year-old San Francisco native who grew up in nearby Atherton.

The 97th-ranked Ahn, who reached the fourth round of the U.S. Open last year, defeated Anna-Lena Friedsam of Germany 7-5, 6-0. 

Ahn, playing two miles (3.2 kilometers) from the hospital where she was born, is set to face Leyla Fernandez, a 17-year-old Canadian left-hander, for the first time on Friday at about 10 a.m.

Fernandez, the Acapulco runner-up to Heather Watson of Great Britain as a qualifier, ousted second-seeded Anna Blinkova of Russia 6-1, 6-4.

Bellis outplayed 13th-seeded Madison Brengle, 30, of Bradenton, Fla., 6-3, 7-6 (4). Brengle won Northern California Challengers in Stockton (2018) and Berkeley (2019). She has beaten Serena Williams once and two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova three times, including at the All England Lawn Tennis Club.

Both Bellis, ranked No. 249, and Brengle, ranked No. 82, own career highs of No. 35. 

Bellis is playing in her sixth tournament since undergoing three operations on her right wrist and one on her right elbow. She is scheduled to play Ysaline Bonaventure, a 25-year-old left-hander from Belgium at about 10 a.m.

 Bonaventure, ranked No. 121, eliminated eighth-seeded Nao Hibino, a Japanese player who won the 2015 Stockton title, 6-7 (3), 6-3, 6-3. 

Bellis and Bonaventure have met once. At age 15 in 2014, Bellis coasted to a 6-2, 6-1 victory in the final of a $25,000 tournament in Florence, S.C.

In the first ATP tournament since the tours shut down in March, wild card Mackenzie McDonald, a 25-year-old product of Piedmont in the Bay Area, topped 24th-seeded Yuichi Sugita of Japan 7-6 (3), 6-3 at Flushing Meadows.

McDonald won his first Challenger title in Fairfield (Calif.) in 2017, advanced to the fourth round at Wimbledon in 2018 and climbed to a career-high No. 57 in April last year. He had hamstring tendon surgery in June 2019 and missed the rest of the year.

McDonald, who will improve at least 14 spots to No. 257, will meet Dominik Koepfer, a 26-year-old German left-hander. Koepfer, ranked No. 92, beat fifth-seeded Juan Ignacio Londero of Argentina 6-4, 7-6 (0).

Koepfer reached NorCal Challenger finals in 2018 and 2019. As a qualifier, he advanced to the fourth round of the U.S. Open last summer. 

Koepfer defeated McDonald 5-7, 6-3, 6-2 in the quarterfinals of the $108,320 Dallas Challenger in February in their only previous meeting.

Halep to skip U.S. Open due to coronavirus concerns

Simona Halep, who won her 21st career singles title on
Sunday in Prague, tweeted that she prefers "to stay and
train in Europe." File photo by Paul Bauman

Second-ranked Simona Halep, a two-time Grand Slam singles champion, said Monday that she will skip the U.S. Open because of coronavirus concerns.

Halep, formerly ranked No. 1, won her 21st career singles title on Sunday in Prague.

"After weighing up all the factors involved and with the exceptional circumstances in which we are living, I have decided that I will not travel to New York to play the @usopen," tweeted Halep, a 28-year-old Romanian. "I always said I would put my health at the heart of my decision and I therefore prefer to stay and train in Europe."

Halep won the French Open in 2018 and Wimbledon last year. Her best result in the U.S. Open is a semifinal appearance in 2015. She has not advanced past the second round at Flushing Meadows since reaching the 2016 quarterfinals.

Six of the top eight women have withdrawn from the U.S. Open, Aug. 31 to Sept. 13. Also opting out were No. 1 Ashleigh Barty of Australia, No. 5 Elina Svitolina of Ukraine, No. 6 and reigning champion Bianca Andreescu of Canada, No. 7 Kiki Bertens of the Netherlands and No. 8 Belinda Bencic of Switzerland. The exceptions are No. 3 Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic and No. 4 Sofia Kenin of the United States.

Also planning to play are No. 9 Serena Williams, seeking her record-tying 24th Grand Slam singles title, and No. 10 Naomi Osaka, the 2018 champion. Both are former world No. 1s.

Men who have chosen not to compete in the U.S. Open include No. 2 Rafael Nadal, who won his fourth singles title at Flushing Meadows last year; No. 9 Gael Monfils, a 2016 semifinalist; No. 17 Stan Wawrinka, the 2016 champion; and No. 40 Nick Kyrgios. 

Top-ranked Novak Djokovic, a three-time U.S. Open champion, has said he will play. Five-time champ Roger Federer, who has had arthroscopic surgery on his right knee twice this year, is out for the rest of the season.

Kei Nishikori, the runner-up to Marin Cilic in the 2014 U.S. Open, tested positive for COVID-19 on Sunday and said he will pull out of the Western & Southern Open, which begins Saturday at Flushing Meadows. He did not discuss his plans for the U.S. Open.

"I am feeling well and have very little symptoms but will obviously be in complete isolation for the safety of everyone," Nishikori told The Associated Press.

A non-player who has been granted access to the USTA National Tennis Center, the site of the Western & Southern Open and U.S. Open, also has tested positive. The individual, who is asymptomatic, has been advised to self-isolate for at least 10 days. The USTA did not divulge the person's identity or role.

American Brady bags first WTA title with win over Swiss

Jennifer Brady, playing in the 2017 Sacramento (Calif.) Challenger, rose
to a career-high No. 40 by winning the inaugural Top Seed Open in Lex-
ington, Ky. Photo by Rob Vomund 

U.S. women, unlike the men, have made big news in the past few years.

Serena Williams has lost her last four Grand Slam finals in straight sets in an attempt to equal Margaret Court's record of 24 major singles titles.

Sofia Kenin, who stunned top-ranked Ashleigh Barty en route to the Australian Open title in January, has skyrocketed to No. 4 in the world at age 21.

Sloane Stephens in 2017 became the second unseeded woman to win the U.S. championships in the Open Era, which began in 1968, and advanced to the French Open final in 2018.

Amanda Anisimova shocked defending champion Simona Halep to reach the semifinals of last year's French Open at 17.

Coco Gauff became a worldwide sensation by reaching the fourth round at Wimbledon last year, upsetting five-time champion Venus Williams in the first round, as a 15-year-old qualifier.

Lost amid all the hoopla, Jennifer Brady is quietly rising in the rankings. 

The 25-year-old product of the Evert Tennis Academy in Boca Raton, Fla., overpowered Jil Teichmann of Switzerland 6-3, 6-4 today in the inaugural Top Seed Open on hardcourts in Lexington, Ky., for her first WTA title.

"There's nothing better than playing at home in America," Brady, who improved to 2-1 against Teichmann and collected $25,000, crowed during the awards ceremony. "Every person loves to play in their country. To win a title on home soil is a great achievement for me and something that I'm going to be very happy about."

Both players were unseeded in the first WTA tournament in North America in almost one year. In fact, two of the three champions since the tour resumed on Aug. 3 after being shut down for almost five months because of the COVID-19 pandemic were unseeded. Also winning titles were unseeded Fiona Ferro of France in Palermo last week and the top-seeded Halep in Prague today.

"I didn't have my coach (Michael Geserer) or trainer with me during the lockdown because they're both based in Germany," Brady said on wtatennis.com. "We had great communication over the past four, five months. They sent me a plan every day. Over the past few months, I've been going nonstop, working and training really hard. Some days were tough, but through most of it, I was pretty motivated and knew what I was doing would help in the long run."

Brady, one of the few Americans whose favorite surface is clay, was playing in her first WTA final. Teichmann, a 23-year-old left-hander, had been 2-0 in WTA title matches, winning on clay in Prague and Palermo last year. 

Neither player had lost a set in the tournament entering the final. Brady surrendered only 25 games in five matches, dropped her serve only three times and saved all four break points against her in the final. Brady faced only one seed, No. 6 Magda Linette, ranked 36th, in the second round.

Both finalists rose nine places in the rankings, Brady to a career-high No. 40 (seventh in the United States) and Teichmann to a career-high-tying No. 54 (second in Switzerland behind No. 8 Belinda Bencic).

Because of Brady's success in Lexington and several U.S. Open withdrawals due to coronavirus concerns, she will be seeded at Flushing Meadows, Aug. 31 to Sept. 13.

Brady has needed time to harness her power and tame her emotions. She played at UCLA for two years (2014-15), helping the Bruins win the NCAA title as a freshman. In Northern California Challengers, she won the singles and doubles title in Redding ($25,000) in 2014 at age 19 and reached the quarterfinals as the top seed in Sacramento ($60,000) in 2017, losing to defending champion Kenin.

Also in 2017, Brady advanced to the fourth round of the Australian Open at age 21 and U.S. Open at 22. She became the first American female qualifier to advance to the last 16 in Melbourne in the Open Era.

Brady recorded her first two top-10 wins this year before the women's and men's tours shut down in March. As a qualifier, she knocked off Barty to reach the quarterfinals in Brisbane in January and No. 6 Elina Svitolina en route to the Dubai semifinals in February. Brady then played 19 exhibition matches during the hiatus.

The 5-foot-10 (1.78-meter) Brady converted only 33 percent of her first serves in the first set against the 5-foot-6 (1.70-meter) Teichmann, who was born in Barcelona and lived there until she was 14, and 44 percent overall. But Brady won 81% of those points (25 of 31) and 62% on her second serve (24 of 39).

Brady broke serve on Teichmann's mis-hit forehand to lead 5-3 in the first set, then capitalized on her fifth set point. Brady earned the only break of the second set in the opening game on Teichmann's long forehand.

Teichmann, who earned $14,000 as the runner-up, also lost in the doubles final. Fourth-seeded Hayley Carter, a native of Chattanooga, Tenn., and Luisa Stefani of Brazil beat unseeded Marie Bouzkova of the Czech Republic and Teichmann 6-1, 7-5 for their second WTA title. The winners split $9,000, and the runners-up shared $5,040.

Carter and Stefani starred at North Carolina and Pepperdine, respectively. Carter won the doubles title in the 2018 Stockton (Calif.) Challenger with Ena Shibahara, a native of Mountain View in the San Francisco Bay Area and former UCLA standout who plays for Japan.

Brady beats Gauff, 16, to reach first WTA final

Jennifer Brady, playing in the 2017 Sacramento (Calif.) Challenger, will face
Jil Teichmann of Switzerland in the final of the Top Seed Open in Lexington, Ky.
 Both players are unseeded. Photo by Rob Vomund

This week's Top Seed Open in Lexington, Ky., featured plenty of star power.

Four Grand Slam singles champions — Serena Williams, Venus Williams, Victoria Azarenka and Sloane Stephens — inhabited the top quarter of the draw, and 16-year-old U.S. phenom Coco Gauff occupied the bottom quarter.

Meeting in Sunday's final (8 a.m. PDT, Tennis Channel), however, will be two rising unseeded players.

Jennifer Brady, a 25-year-old former UCLA star from Boca Raton, Fla., overpowered Gauff 6-2, 6-4 to reach her first WTA final. 

Gauff had ousted second-seeded Aryna Sabalenka, the runner-up in San Jose, Calif., last August, in the second round and eighth-seeded Ons Jabeur, an Australian Open quarterfinalist in January, in the quarters.

Jil Teichmann, a 23-year-old left-hander from Switzerland, dismissed Shelby Rogers, a 27-year-old wild card from Charleston, S.C., 6-3, 6-2. Rogers was coming off a three-set victory over top-seeded Serena Williams, who has a residence in Silicon Valley, on Friday.

Teichmann, who was born in Barcelona and lived there until she was 14, is 2-0 in WTA finals, winning on clay in Prague and Palermo last year, and 1-1 against Brady.

Neither finalist has lost a set in four matches in the first WTA tournament in North America in almost one year. Brady has dropped 17 games and Teichmann 22. 

"I don't have an answer for that, why I don't lose any sets," Teichmann, who also reached the doubles final, said in an on-court interview. "I just feel very good. I'm playing very consistent, and I feel great on court. I guess that's the main reason."

Brady played at UCLA for two years (2014-15), helping the Bruins win the NCAA title as a freshman. She won the singles and doubles titles in the 2014 Redding (Calif.) Challenger and reached the fourth round of the 2017 Australian Open and U.S. Open.

Brady won 85 percent of the points (22 of 26) on her first serve in her first career match against Gauff and faced only one break point, which she saved. Brady had eight aces and two double faults. 

Both Brady, a semifinalist in Dubai as a qualifier in February, and Gauff, who won the title in Linz, Austria, last October as a lucky loser, will ascend to career-high rankings on Monday. Brady is guaranteed to rise six places to No. 43, and Gauff will improve five notches to No. 48.

In another first-time matchup, Teichmann converted only 46% of her first serves (to Rogers' 74%) but won 80 percent of those points (20 of 25). She will jump at least nine places in the rankings to tie her career high of No. 54.

Rogers made numerous unforced errors in the match but will return to the top 100 for the first time since April 2018, vaulting 21 places to No. 95. 

Rogers reached the quarterfinals of the 2016 French Open and climbed to a career-high No. 48 the following January. However, she hurt her left knee in a first-round loss at Indian Wells in March 2018, had surgery and sat out for one year.

In the doubles semifinals, unseeded Marie Bouzkova of the Czech Republic and Teichmann edged top-seeded Alexa Guarachi, a native of Fort Walton Beach, Fla., who plays for Chile, and Desirae Krawczyk, a left-hander born in Palm Desert, Calif., 6-2, 3-6 [10-4].

Bouzkova and Teichmann will play fourth-seeded Hayley Carter, a native of Chattanooga, Tenn., and Luisa Stefani of Brazil after the singles final. Carter and Stefani starred at North Carolina and Pepperdine, respectively. 

Carter won the doubles title in the 2018 Stockton, Calif., Challenger with Ena Shibahara, a native of Mountain View in the San Francisco Bay Area who plays for Japan.

Serena falls to No. 116 Rogers; Gauff, 16, rallies; Bellis out

Serena Williams lost to wild card Shelby Rogers 1-6, 6-4,
7-6 (5) today in the quarterfinals of the inaugural Top Seed
Open in Lexington, Ky. File photo by Paul Bauman

Serena Williams lost to a player ranked in triple digits for the first time in more than eight years today.

Of course, Shelby Rogers is not really that caliber.

Rogers, a wild card ranked No. 116, stunned Williams, seeded first and ranked ninth, 1-6, 6-4, 7-6 (5) in an all-American quarterfinal in the inaugural Top Seed Open in Lexington, Ky.

"It's every kid's dream when they're growing up watching her play to do something like that," the 27-year-old Rogers, a former top-50 player rebounding from knee surgery, said in an on-court interview. "Weird circumstances, weird setting, but a win is a win, and I know that we're all just happy to be back playing. It's great to see everyone fit and playing well." 

There is little seating at the site, which isn't a problem because no fans are allowed at the tournament, the first on the WTA tour in North America in almost one year, amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The tournament featured four Grand Slam singles champions (Serena Williams, Venus Williams, Victoria Azarenka and Fresno, Calif., product Sloane Stephens), all in Rogers' quarter of the draw.

Rogers is scheduled to face unseeded Jil Teichmann of Switzerland for the first time on Saturday at 8 a.m. PDT (Tennis Channel). Teichmann, 23, needed seven match points to subdue CiCi Bellis, a 21-year-old San Francisco native who grew up in nearby Atherton, 6-2, 6-4.

Teichmann, who has not lost a set in three matches, will be Rogers' third left-handed opponent this week.

"I'm not sure I've ever done that before," said Rogers, who beat lefties Misaki Doi of Japan in the first round and Leylah Fernandez, a 17-year-old qualifier from Canada, in the second round. "It's definitely rare."

After the Rogers-Teichmann match, Coco Gauff will meet Jennifer Brady for the first time in a showdown of unseeded Americans.

Gauff, a 16-year-old phenom ranked No. 53, defeated Tunisia's Ons Jabeur, seeded eighth and ranked a career-high 39th, 4-6, 6-4, 6-1. Gauff trailed 2-4 in the second set but won 10 of the last 11 games.

Brady, ranked No. 49, drubbed unseeded Marie Bouzkova, a Czech ranked one notch higher, 6-1, 6-2. Brady, who reached the Dubai semifinals as a qualifier in February, has lost only 11 games in her three matches this week.

Williams, a 38-year-old part-time resident of Silicon Valley, suffered her first loss to a player ranked No. 100 or below since falling to No. 111 Virginie Razzano of France in the first round of the 2012 French Open.

Rogers, meanwhile, recorded her third victory over a top-10 player. She defeated No. 8 Eugenie Bouchard of Canada in the second round at Montreal in 2014 and ousted No. 4 Simona Halep in the first round of the 2017 Australian Open.

Rogers reached the quarterfinals of the French Open in 2016 and climbed to a career-high No. 48 the following January. However, she suffered a knee injury in a first-round loss at Indian Wells in March 2018, had surgery and sat out for one year.  

All three of Williams' matches in the tournament went to three sets, including her emotional win over Venus Williams on Thursday.

Against Rogers, Serena Williams led 3-1 in the tiebreaker and netted a putaway forehand that would have made it 4-1. Rogers won the next three points to lead 5-3. 

Williams made it 4-5 with a swinging forehand volley but netted a backhand to give Rogers two match points. Williams saved the first one with a service winner but then slugged a backhand long. 

"I was definitely a little bit overwhelmed in the first set with the pace, heavy spin and serve," Rogers admitted after playing Williams for the first time and reaching her first WTA semifinal in more than four years. "I just tried to make a few more balls, make one more, one more, run down a few more."

Rogers converted only 45 percent of her first serves in the match.

"The serve was a struggle for me today, but the second serve came through when I needed it," she said. "Then (on the second) match point, I made a first serve, so that's all that matters, I guess."

Gauff, coming off a three-set victory over second-seeded and 11th-ranked Aryna Sabalenka on Wednesday, reached her second WTA semifinal. She won the title in Linz, Austria, last October as a lucky loser.

Gauff, who advanced to the fourth round at Wimbledon last year and the Australian Open in January, is guaranteed to rise to a career-high No. 48 on Monday. 

Jabeur won the French Open girls singles title in 2011 and reached her first career Grand Slam quarterfinal in the Australian Open in January, ending former world No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki's career in the third round.

Bellis survived all six match points with Teichmann serving at 5-3 in the second set and finally broke on a double fault. But Teichmann, who has one of the best returns-of-serve in women's tennis, broke serve for the sixth time to close out the match. 

"That was tough," Teichmann said of the next-to-last game. "I was serving very well from this side, but obviously when you serve for the match, it's a bit different. You start thinking a bit, and she was starting to play a bit more aggressive. She hit a few lines, and I was hitting a little bit out, so it was a very close game. I'm happy to close it in the next game."

Teichmann lost the first two games of the match but won the next nine en route to her first WTA hardcourt semifinal. Bellis converted only 22 percent of her first serves in the first set and 43 percent overall.

"I started a little bit slow, and CiCi started very well," said Teichmann, who will rise at least five places to No. 58, four spots off her career high in July 2019. "I just knew I had to get into a rhythm, and I was lucky to get it in the third game. After that, I played very consistent." 

Teichmann, who was born in Barcelona and lived there until she was 15, and Bellis met for the first time as professionals. Bellis routed Teichmann 6-2, 6-1 in the 2015 French Open girls quarterfinals. 

Curiously, Teichmann decided to play in Lexington rather than defend her title on clay, her favorite surface, in Prague. Her other WTA singles title also came last year on clay, in Palermo.

Bellis was seeking her first WTA semifinal since the Bank of the West Classic at Stanford, a five-minute drive from her childhood home, in August 2017. The 5-foot-7 (1.68-meter) right-hander missed almost two years, from March 2018 to November 2019, while undergoing three operations on her right wrist and one on her right elbow.

Lexington was the fifth tournament of Bellis' comeback. Ranked a career-high No. 35 in August 2017, she will jump from No. 302 to No. 250 after reaching her first WTA quarterfinal since Doha in February 2018.