Muchova FINALLY beats Gauff! Iga collapses, Alcaraz & Djokovic skip Madrid

Karolina Muchova finally defeated Coco Gauff for the first time in seven attempts during the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix quarterfinals, extending Gauff's semifinal drought in Stuttgart. Iga Swiatek's semifinal drought for 2026 continues after falling to Mirra Andreeva. Elena Rybakina narrowly avoided the same fates as Gauff and Swiatek with an epic comeback win vs Leylah Fernandez. Both Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic will be skipping the Madrid masters due to injury. 

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The Western Grip Soul Sisters, Coco Golf, and Eagles Fiantech were both sent packing today in Stuttgart with three set defeats against Carolina Mohova and Mira Andreva, respectively. I'll break down what went wrong for the second and third seeds, go over that epic Rabakina Fernandez clash, and highlight the other 500 results, which saw some marquee matchups such as Shelton Fonseca and Fis Musetti. Plus, two of the biggest stars in men's tennis, Carlos Alcaraz and Novel Djokovic, will be skipping the Madrid Open Masters next week. I'll explain why coming up. Hello, my name is Christian Bass Knight, and welcome to Christian's Court where I cover tennis from all angles. If you have not yet already, make sure you subscribe and click that notification bell so you're notified whenever I post my next update video. So Carolina Mojova has finally beaten Coco Golf. It's one of the biggest wins of her career, even though it's just a 500 quarterfinal. She took down her biggest op, golf, by a score of 6'3, 5'7, 6'3 to reach the Stuttgart semifinals. Golf was a massive favorite in this one. She was 6-0 overall and had only dropped one set to Mohova, which was at the Australian Open this year. And these two have already played twice, at least before today. They played twice before this year. And their last meeting at Miami was very one-sided in Coco's favor. Golf just lost two games in that semifinal match. Now, this was their first match on clay, as all six of their previous meetings were on hard court. So I was pretty curious to see how the how the matchup dynamic would shift, if at all. And it definitely did. And it felt like Mojova was for sure more of the aggressor in this match, especially early on compared to matches prior. Carolina served much, much better than in Miami. She made 80% of her first serves and play in the opening set, and that enabled her to incorporate more offensive plays like the Serve and Volleys. And she was also able to use her forehand, especially her inside-out forehand, shot a lot more to dictate. And I think the clay actually helped Muhova in this matchup because it gave her more time to run around her backhand to hit her stronger forehand. And in many of their previous matches, it felt like Coco was in more control of the baseline rallies with her relentlessly attacking Muhova's backhand. But this time around, Carolina was able to target her opponent's weaker wing. Um, and for Coco, that's of course her forehand. And Coco's forehand was really off from the very start of the match. She netted a lot of her forehand down-the-line shots as well. And overall, her rhythm just was not there at all. And she does tend to have more forehand issues in Stuttgart. And I think it's a major reason of why she's never made it past the quarterfinals in this tournament. She just did not accelerate through her forehand enough at all in this match, and really her body weight was more pulled up instead of staying down and keeping her body weight moving forward, transitioning forward through the shot. And Mujova, though, I think she does deserve a lot of credit for making life harder for Coco. I said previously that I don't think Mujova uses her sliced backhand nearly enough against Coco, particularly directing that shot to the golf forehand, because I think slicing it to Goss forehand makes it a more challenging shot for Coco with her Western grip. And I think it's an even more effective shot on the clay with the different type of bounce. But Muhova used this shot very well, especially in the opening set. And she was also able to sneak in some drop shots, successfully doing so, especially with Coco taking a deeper court positioning throughout this match. And overall, I think Muhova struck her top spin backhand much better this match compared to in matches prior against Coco, and that helped her a lot. Now, in the second set, Muhova's first serve percentage dipped from 80% in set number one to 54% in the second set, and that gave Coco the opportunity to better target Muhova's backhand, and that definitely helped her get the second set. It was a great mental effort from Goff to pull through that second set as she was two points from defeat after twice holding break leads in the second set. Now I thought that Coco used that momentum to carry her through to a seventh straight win over Carolina, and she had two break points in the opening game of the decider, but Mujova just produced some strong shots, credit to her to save those break points. Muhova broke Goff at 3-2, thanks in part due to some sloppy, you know, play from Coco's part. But I think the consolidation from Mujova the following game won her that match. Goff had three breakback points at 4-2. But once again, Carolina produced some of her best tennis to dig herself out of trouble. And there's really not much Coco did wrong here on those break points. And overall, I was very, very impressed by how well Muhova closed out this match. I thought maybe she would have a little bit of a wobble with this being the closest she's ever been to beating Coco, but she was poised and she proved why she's number five in the race to re-ad. She's been excellent all year. She's 24 now, and two of those losses came to Coco. And I've always felt that those golf Muhova matches prior should have been really closer, even that Miami semifinal. But I think a lot of it just came down to the mental for Muhova. Um, but it really the mentality helped her today. And I think this being on clay perhaps gave her a little bit more belief, despite this being Coco's most successful surface. Now, I do think Stuttgart is Coco's least best uh clay tournament for sure. She's never made the semifinals here, and this is her fifth year playing the tournament. And you think with it being an indoor clay tournament, it would better suit her game. Of course, indoors, you think it would help her get rid of some of those service issues as she wouldn't have to deal with the elements. And she did serve solid in her two matches this week, so that's a plus for her. But I don't think her mindset is quite right for these conditions. She's not able to rely as much, I think, on her athleticism here in Stuttgart, and she often relies on it more on the clay and is a little bit more of a defensive player on the surface. I do think she needs to accelerate through her forehand a little bit more on Stuttgart. The ball bounce is lower here, and she still accelerates well through her backhand, but she just pulls up on her forehand way too much. And I think she needs to work on that even for the upcoming tournaments in Madrid, Rome, and Roland Guerro's. I also think Coco's movement isn't as big of a factor as it is on other at other tournaments on clay. The clay in Stuttgart is definitely more slippery. Goff said that herself. And she's more off-balanced even on her backhand, and I feel like she's not able to track down as many balls, and her defense isn't as much of a factor here in Stuttgart. I think maybe she'd have more success playing Charleston instead. She's probably not as fond of the green clay, and plus it's so soon after the Sunshine double stretch. But the one time she played Charleston in 2021, she won three main draw matches. And I also feel like the tournament was made for her. Not only is it in the United States, but its initials are Coco. Now I'm not really concerned too much about the rest of Coco's clay swing. Yes, she's defending a lot of points, being finalists at Madrid, Rome, and Roland Garros, but I still think that she'll be okay. Her serve did look promising, but again, the forehand just needs to be cleaner. I do wonder whether this Mujova win will change the matchup dynamics between the two from now on out. I think for sure with Muhova getting that monkey off her back and getting a win over Coco, she's gonna come out playing stronger tennis and she's gonna have more belief the next time she plays golf. But up next for Carolina and Stuttgart is Alina Svitalina, the fourth seed, who beat Linda Noskova 7'6, 7-5. This marks Fitalina's fifth semifinal of the season. So, like Carolina, she's playing some excellent tennis. Svitalina is number four in the race, so I'm really looking forward to this match. Now, Svitolina leads to head-to-head with Carolina 3-0, and two of those matches, though, were in 2019. Their last match was Miami last year, where Svitalina won it in three sets. This is gonna be a tight one for me to call, but I think I might be siding with Svitalina to take this one and reach the finals. Mira Andreva is making a strong case of being the new queen of indoor clay tennis. After winning the title in Linz last week, the 18-year-old extends her winning streak to seven after scoring a 3-6-6-4-6-3 comeback win over two-time champion Iga Schiontek. This match was pretty lengthy, over two and a half hours, and we saw some lengthy games, especially at 2-all and 3-2 in the opening set. Both women did a great job of erasing quite a few break points to hold in those respective games. And it was very high quality tennis overall. I feel like Iga, she was in control for a good part of the match with her having more weapons from her serve and her overall just more strong ground game. But in the second set, we saw Shhiantech start to lose her service edge. Her first serve percentage dipped by 11%, and Mira took advantage of that. She attacked the second serve well throughout in the second and third sets, and she broke three times total in the second set. Now, Shantek looked to be in a decent position to take this match in straight sets, actually. She was up 30-15 at for all and was within two points of a crucial break, but could not take advantage. I think Iga went too many times to the Mira backhand, which is obviously the stronger wing of the two. I think she should have targeted the forehand a little bit more because quite a few times Mira burned her with the backhand. But still, Shiontek was in a good position in the final set. She broke early and was up two love and had a break point for a double break lead for the three love lead, but she could not convert. And then her serve, her first serve, betrayed her badly in this final set. Iga's first serve percentage dipped below 50% in this deciding set, which enabled Andreva to step up and do more damage, even behind her forehand. Now, Mira deserves a lot of credit for how well she played in this final set. She produced some excellent shot making and she overall served well. But Iga's intensity definitely dropped and she began making a lot more unforced errors towards the end of the match, even on the backhand wing, which was pretty jarring. Looking at the final match stats, Iga looked like the better player. She had a better winner to unforced error ratio, and she won one more point compared to Mira. But Andreva is just a little bit more confident right now, and I think that ultimately made the difference. This is her third straight win over Shiantec, and Iga, meanwhile, is still seeking a top 10 win and a semifinal for 2026. She's lost her last six matches against top 10 opponents. It kind of reminds me of Iga's 2025 or the start to her 2025, but worse, because thinking back to 2025, she was on a finals draw. She was making the semifinals, but she wasn't getting to that final stage. Now she can't make a semifinal to save her life. That's obviously not great news. I mean, it's not a bad, bad omen for Sfiantech, but definitely she is not the same dominant force, even on clay, I feel, like she was from 2022 to 2024. I think she would have won this match two years ago. I'm wondering if Francisco DeRoy can truly make a difference, a long-term difference. And I know people were expecting a lot considering how she got some advice from Ralph and Nadal while she was training at the Nadal Academy. But I think it's also gonna take some time because not only are there things to be worked out with Ega's game, but the biggest thing is mental. And right now, she just does not have that confidence. And I think one of my mutual's bunch said it best is that Ega, the main thing she needs is a good win over a top opponent. I think last year that win over Rabakana at Roland Garros in the fourth round really changed things, and I think that set the tone for her run to the woman in titles. So I think if she can just get her mind right and get a big win, that can really start to change things for the better for the poll. Now, speaking of Rabacana, the top seed and 2024 champion won a marathon quarterfinal, saving two match points against Layla Fernandez to win 6'7, 6'4, 7-6. I should have known that this was going to be a great match, judging from their DC semifinal, where Layla won in a match that lasted three or that went three tiebreak sets. And really, Elena, she must have wanted that second Porsche because she had no business winning this match. Robacina was sloppy from the start of the match. Her first serve was not hitting its mark, and the forehand was misfiring badly. And Fernandez got out to a 5-2 lead and had three set points at 5-2. But Robacana fought fought hard and she found her range and pushed it to a tie break where Fernandez was the steadier of the two and took it. It was a bit of a similar story in the second set. Fernandez started stronger and outplayed Robacana, uh, got up to a 4-2 lead, but Robacana then hit another gear. She served much better and played more within herself overall and took the second set, reeling off five straight games. I thought Robacana would kind of run away with the third set with her having a momentum and her serving first, but it was Fernandez who broke first at two all. And Robacana's return quality also dipped a little bit in the final set. She gave Layla a lot of missed returns, but she was able to lock in at the very last minute when Layla was serving for the match at 5-4 to break. And she also saved the match point in this in this game. There really wasn't too much that Fernandez did wrong in this game, and on match point, Robacana just produced some incredible shots to get the break. The 5-all game was also a movie because Robacana had a 40-love lead, and then Fernandez fought back so well. She deserves credit too for fighting back like that after squandering the match point. But she had a break point at 5-all, but wasn't able to convert. Then she had her second match point up 6-5 in the third set tiebreaker, but Robacana really just came up with a clutch serve out wide to erase it, and she didn't drop another point. This is a match of the year contender. If you did not watch it, I highly suggest you go and watch the replay because it was it was so good. Fernandez played a great match, and you can see why she had why she's given Robacana fits in the past because she takes the ball early, gets the ball right back on you so early. And I think also her lefty serve, especially into the body, really gave Elena a lot of fits. But I feel for Fernandez, she was so close, and really I think she deserved to win this match. Um, but props to her also for fighting so well, not only in this match, but this tournament. As the match prior, she fought back from 1-5 down against St. Up Salmes to win. So a great tournament overall for Fernandez. But Robacana, she is just really something else. She has given us quite a few really great matches already this season. Just thinking about her match against Sabalank at Indian Wells, also her match against Mboco at Indoha, as well as her match against Pakula and Miami. She's gonna definitely have multiple spots on my top 10 matches of matches of the year list for 2026. But up next for her is of course Andreva, and Mira actually leads the head-to-head two to one, and she won both their matches last year. But this is gonna be their first clay meeting. I think I might side with Robacina to come through and get the win there. Now, looking at the men's side, it was far less eventful. It was a no-nonsense day in Barcelona as all four of the quarterfinal matches wrapped up in straight sets. The big match of the day was between second seed Lorenzo Musetti and ninth seed Arthur Feast, and it was the Frenchman who booked his spot in the Barcelona semifinals for a second straight year, earning a very impressive 6'3, 6'4 win. It felt like Feast was in control for much of this match. His forehand was by far the biggest shot on the court. I don't think Musetti was able to do enough with his own forehand, and he was a bit too passive, in my opinion. I also think his serve placement didn't do himself many favors, talking about the Italian. Plus, Musetti just did not have much success behind his second serve as he won just 38% of points behind his second delivery. Arter will next meet 19-year-old Spaniard Rafa Hodar, who is in dangerous form right now. Hodar is currently on an eight-match winning streak after dominating seventh seed Cam Nori 6'3-6-2. Hodar won his first title in Marrakesh a couple weeks ago, and he's been in fine form. He's only dropped one set on clay this year, and he's gonna crack the top 50 come Monday, which is exceptional considering how this time last year he was ranked outside the top 700, which like that's utterly insane. Again, he's playing great tennis right now, but I would favor Feast to come through this match. Nori was tragic today. He hit eight winners to 25 unforced errors. I think Feast, not only is he playing better than Nori for sure, but he has much more firepower from his own forehand that I think will do a lot more damage. Hodardo, I think, will test his patience a little bit. The Spaniard has decent shot tolerance and his backhand is a pretty good shot, but I'm still going to be sticking with Arter to make the finals in Barcelona. The other semifinal in Spain sees Andre Rublev take on qualifier, Haman Mehedovic. Rublev has looked sharper so far, not yet dropping a set. He just beat Tomas Mahatch 6'4-6-3. Hamad, meanwhile, defeated Nuno Borges 7-6-6-2 and will be seeking his second top 15 win of the week after beating third seed Demonor earlier in the week. Now in Munich, the top match to watch was definitely between Ben Shelton and Joao Fonseca. Ben prevailed in the battle of the on and Yon X ambassadors, taking a competitive and entertaining 6'3-3-6-6-3 win to reach the semifinals. Shelton next plays the qualifier Alex Mokan, who defeated Dennis Shapovalov 6'4-6-4. Meanwhile, the top seed, Alexander Zverev, took down Francisco Salundolo 5-7-6-Love-6-2 for his fifth consecutive win over the Argentine, and it's his first over Salonelo on the clay. The German now faces the fourth seed, Flavio Caboli, who only dropped five games in his win over Vitkopiva. Now I'm going to be ending the video on some unfortunate news with our Australian Open finalists Carlos Alcaraz and Novad Djokovic withdrawing from the upcoming Madrid Masters. Djokovic looked likely to play after he was seen training in Spain recently, although last night he told Movistar that he was unsure about his participation due to him struggling with an injury. Djokovic confirmed his withdrawal today, and he has not played since Ending Wells, where he lost to Drake Draper in a gripping round of 16 encounter. He pulled out of Miami, citing a shoulder injury, so perhaps that's what's bothering him here. I'm not really too moved by this withdrawal. Djokovic mainly cares about the majors, and I think he doesn't want to jeopardize his chances at Roland Garros with any injury issues. I think if he doesn't play a clear lead up, I'd be a bit more concerned, but also wouldn't be too surprised if he didn't play at all. But I'm just curious to see how his form would be with the lack of matches that he's played, because last year at this point, he'd played six tournaments, but he's played two so far this year. So I think definitely Father Time is catching up with him. Meanwhile, Carlos Alcadez also announced that he would not be playing at the Caja Magica this year due to a wrist injury he sustained during his Barcelona opener against Otto Vertanen. Alcadez initially thought he'd be okay, considering he'd been in a similar position before, but after some tests, he discovered it was much more serious than he initially anticipated. He withdrew from his round of 16 match against Tomas Mahaj, and today he announced that he'd be skipping Madrid for a second straight year. Alcadez skipped his home 1000 tournament last year after dealing with some adductor and hamstring injuries. He was also injured while playing in 2024 as he dealt with a forearm problem, but he lost in the quarterfinals and then withdrew from Rome. I'm not really that worried about Carlos. I think it's more of a precautionary move for Roland Guerros, and I think that we will see him back for Rome. It does make the number one ranking more out of reach for him, but I doubt he cares too much about that, to be honest. I think he's mainly concerned about his Roland Garros title defense. That is all I have for this video. Let me know your thoughts on all the results and if you're concerned for not only Carlos Sinovac, but Iga and Coco as they prepare for Madrid and the other Roland Garros lead up tournaments. Also, make sure you subscribe and click the notification bell so you're notified whenever I post more content. I still want to talk about the Marquesa Vandrosova whole doping thing because that's a very interesting story. But right now I just don't have the time, but it's for another video. Thank you all so much for watching and for your support, and I will see you all next time here on Christian's Corp.