Former Olympic champion Belintavensik surprised the third-seeded American CocoGoffs 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 on Wednesday, reaching the Indian Wells’ BNP Paribas quarter-finals.
The 28-year-old wildcard, who gave birth to her daughter Bella last April, earned 69% of her first service points in a match that lasted two hours and 20 minutes.
Swiss native, Vensik returned the bounty from the Australian opening in January. The defeat came the day before Golf’s 21st birthday as the 2023 US Open champions were beaten 4-4 in the final set after rising 40-0.
“Obviously, this is why you practice and work hard all your life, so it’s so nice to play in this kind of atmosphere,” Vensik said in an on-court interview. “The way I cheered before the match… I had chills and goosebumps and I was so nervous that I put a serve on the court.”
Gauff started aggressively and committed five double faults in the first set. This included three games in one game, but only broke once in the middle of closing the set with 51 minutes when Bencic sent a wide forehand.
However, Bencic was firing on all cylinders in the second set, building a 4-1 lead before Gauff secured it when he returned the serve to the net despite having to go through two doctor visits for foot and hand issues.
Bencic took another medical timeout before making decision sets tend to do hand blister.
Gauff struggled with her serve throughout the tournament, with eight double faults against Bencic and only four aces.
The Bensik will then face another Australian open champion, Madison Keys. The Madison Keys scored a 4-6, 7-6 (7), 6-3 victory over 19 seed Dona Bekic.
The 30-year-old No. 3 seed has extended his winning streak to 15 games after chasing 5-3 and scoring two points from a two-set loss.
“After a close tiebreaker, you get a set and have a little energy and all the surges. “So I just wanted to try and play a really tough game in the first game and try to get what I was doing well to close that set.”
The Keys did just that, taking momentum from the tiebreak and defeating Vekic to open the third. She concluded her comeback victory with one of the fatal forehands to wild cheers from home fans.
Top seed Aryna Sabalenka won Sonay Kartal 6-1, 6-2. She meets Ludmira Samsonova in the quarter-finals.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to the report.