Italian Open: Coco Gauff-Jessica Pegula battle past Desirae Krawczyk-Demi Schuurs into doubles final

Rome [Italy], May 18 : No.1 seeds Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula advanced into their third straight WTA 1000 doubles final with a comeback win in a semifinal at the Italian Open on Thursday.

Gauff and Pegula rallied from a set and a break down to defeat No.3 seeds Desirae Krawczyk of the US and Demi Schuurs of the Netherlands 4-6, 7-6(5), [10-8] after 1 hour and 53 minutes of play in Rome.

In the final, Gauff and Pegula will face either Storm Hunter and Elise Mertens or Marie Bouzkova and Bethanie Mattek-Sands.

Krawczyk and Schuurs, the two-time defending winners on the Stuttgart clay, led 5-2 in the first set before hanging on for a one-set victory. They broke Gauff's serve in the first game of the second set to take a set-and-break lead.

Schuurs, however, dropped service with a double fault to tie the second set at 4-4. Pegula hit a superb lob beyond Schuurs in a hotly contested second-set tiebreak to convert her team's first set point at 6-5, tying the match.

Exactly half of the points in the deciding match-tiebreak went to the returners, with Gauff and Pegula reaching double match point at 9-7 after Krawczyk netted a rally backhand. Gauff won the match with a backhand passing winner down the line on their second match point.

In the match, Gauff and Pegula had six more winners and six less unforced errors than their opponents.