Coco Gauff and Katerina Siniakova are through to the 2024 Roland Garros doubles quarter-final after beating Xinyu Wang and Ena Shibahara.
Wang and Shibahara are good doubles players themselves, but in the third round of this season's second major, they faced arguably some of the best doubles players of the tournament so far.
Siniakova and Gauff were both ranked at the top of the doubles rankings and have big trophies to their names. The Czech player even won Grand Slam trophies and a medal from the Olympics, which she'll defend fairly soon with Barbora Krejcikova.
As for Gauff, she hopes to team up with Jessica Pegula to try and win one for her country as well. For now, Pegula is away from the sport due to injury, but the younger American is playing doubles and doing so well.
After starting well at the event, the newly-formed combo continued their good play also in the third round of the tournament. The opening set was a 6-4 win for the fifth-seeded team, and it largely came from pretty solid live-action play compared to their opponents, who weren't as sharp.
Most of the damage was done at the start of the match when the American-Czech duo jumped out to a 3-0 lead. After that, they dropped their serve but still retained the lead, which they kept, winning the first set 6-4.
The second set opened better for Wang and Shibahara as they took an early break which they could hold for a while but then lost the advantage. Gauff and Siniakova had momentum firmly on their side, but they were playing a combo that was playing far better in the second set than in the first one.
Still, Gauff and Siniakova broke their opponents again at 4-4 to make it 5-4 and then closed it out to win the second set 6-4 to win the match 6-4, 6-4 and secure the quarter-final. They're looking as strong contenders to win the tournament so far.
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