Coco Gauff stuns fans with straight loss to Paula Badosa in Australian Open QF | News, results, highlights, stats and rumours

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MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - JANUARY 21: Coco Gauff of the United States in action in the Women's Singles quarterfinal match against Paula Badosa of Spain during Day 10 of the 2025 Australian Open at Melbourne Park on January 21, 2025 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Fred Lee/Getty Images)

Fred Lee/Getty Images

Coco Gauff was defeated by Paula Badosa in the Australian Open quarter-finals on Monday, suffering a straight-sets defeat that left fans stunned.

With several self-inflicted errors, Gauff fell 7-5, 6-4 to no. 11 from Badosa when social media reacted:

Cedric Golden @CedGolden

Coco Gauff is a tough guard when she gets in her own head. Can’t serve. Can’t hit a forehand. Down a set. She has to dig deep here.

aidan @aidan1645790

when coco gauff is bad, she’s really bad.

Max Holtzclaw @Max_Attacks

Coco Gauff may be one of the biggest downfalls in tennis. If she didn’t have the worst mental game out there, she’d probably have more than one major. As I know she’s only 20, it’s just disappointing to see her shut herself down when she has a couple of bad games in a set

Cedric Golden @CedGolden

Coco Gauff out in Australia. You wonder if she ends up being great. She is about to turn 21 and has a large profit. She’s a great defender, but with these serve and forehand deficiencies, it’s going to be a steep climb. You can’t be below average on both.

Diana (Eng) / Diane (Fr) @DiKitsch

Coco Gauff’s body language is her first tennis rival.

Yanyan Li @yyanyanli1

I really thought Coco Gauff had a serious shot at the title after how amazing her form has been from the 2024 Asian swing to the United Cup. Her worst problems came out today and it meant a bad loss in the quarter finals.
Progress is clearly not linear, even if it is bad timing

Austin @27Hutch27

Wow coco gauff was smoked. The crazy thing is last night I kept thinking she was going to be the one to hit her and she did

Matt Dowell @MattDowellTV

It’s a really disappointing result from Coco.
She didn’t play well this entire tournament and we never saw the form she has shown in the last few months. The forehand and body language was really bad today.
Really thought she had a good shot to win this.

Entering the match with a 9-0 record this season and a Grand Slam title to her name, Gauff arrived at Rod Laver Arena riding a 13-match winning streak before the upset.

Despite Gauff’s accolades, Badosa remained composed and prepared to face the 20-year-old phenom.

“She’s full of confidence. But I’m also playing well,” Badosa told AP News’ Howard Fendrich. “I’m ready to meet her.”

With the win, Badosa advances to her first Grand Slam semi-final at the age of 27, showing the best tennis of her career.

“I’m a little emotional,” Badosa said. “I wanted to play my best tennis. I think I did. … I’m super proud of the level I gave today.”

Gauff, who finished with a staggering 41 unforced errors, including six double faults and 28 missed forehands, failed to earn a single break point until she was already down a set and a break in the second.

With the victory, Badosa will meet no. 1 Aryna Sabalenka or no. 27 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the semi-finals on Tuesday evening.