Coco Gauff, Iga Swiatek headline shock Stuttgart exits as top seeds crash out

Reigning French Open champion Gauff started her match against Karolina Muchova as the hot favourite, having led 6â-0 in their head-to-head rivalry, but the seventh-seeded Czech came away with a 6â-3, 5â-7, 6â-3 win.

"It was our first meeting on clay. Weâ™ve never played before," Muchova said. "But I think sheâ™s an unbelievable player on clay, like, I feel her last-year clay season, Roland Garros champion, just incredible mover. So I just knew that I have to play really well to get a chance to win.

"I just tried to play my game, as well. As I mentioned, I tried to slice it up, break her rhythm, and yeah, it was working today."

Rising star Andreeva won her second match in a row against six-time Grand Slam winner Swiatek as the 18-year-old world No 9 defeated the Pole 7-6 (7-1), 1-6, 6-3 to take a 2-1 lead in their H2H.

"I think, you know, there were moments where I felt like I was playing better, for sure, than other moments where I dropped the level," Swiatek said. "She played better for a while, so I think these parts of the match that I played well, I felt like, you know, full control over whatâ™s going on.

"So this is something positive. You just need to keep that towards the end of the match.

"I think the baseline game was, you know, it made sense. I felt like I kind of knew what I was doing, and this is something positive, because honestly, for, you know, previous matches, it wasnâ™t always like that.

"I think I returned the first serve of her pretty well, looking at the speed and everything. So these are the positives."

Andreeva will face top-seed Elena Rybakina in the semi-final after the Australian Open champion beat Fernandez 6-7 (5-7), 6-4, 7-6 (8-6) in a match that lasted three hours.

The other semi-final will see Muchova up against Elina Svitolina after the Ukrainian beat Noskova 7-6 (7-2), 7-5.

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