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Newcastle Hosts Man City in League Cup. Madrid Looks to Bounce Back against Las Palmas

24 September 2023, United Kingdom, Sheffield: Newcastle United's Bruno Guimaraes celebrates with team-mate Anthony Gordon after scoring his side's seventh goal during the English Premier League match between Sheffield United and Newcastle United at Bramall Lane. (dpa)
24 September 2023, United Kingdom, Sheffield: Newcastle United's Bruno Guimaraes celebrates with team-mate Anthony Gordon after scoring his side's seventh goal during the English Premier League match between Sheffield United and Newcastle United at Bramall Lane. (dpa)
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Newcastle Hosts Man City in League Cup. Madrid Looks to Bounce Back against Las Palmas

24 September 2023, United Kingdom, Sheffield: Newcastle United's Bruno Guimaraes celebrates with team-mate Anthony Gordon after scoring his side's seventh goal during the English Premier League match between Sheffield United and Newcastle United at Bramall Lane. (dpa)
24 September 2023, United Kingdom, Sheffield: Newcastle United's Bruno Guimaraes celebrates with team-mate Anthony Gordon after scoring his side's seventh goal during the English Premier League match between Sheffield United and Newcastle United at Bramall Lane. (dpa)

A look at what’s happening in European soccer on Wednesday:

ENGLAND

Newcastle hosts Manchester City in the third round of the English League Cup on Wednesday. City has made a 100% start to the season, while Newcastle routed Sheffield United 8-0 on Sunday. Newcastle was beaten by Manchester United in last season’s final and is still waiting for its first major trophy since 1969. City won everything but the League Cup last season when it completed a trophy treble of the Premier League, Champions League and FA Cup. Other all-Premier League clashes include Aston Villa vs. Everton, Brentford vs. Arsenal and Chelsea vs. Brighton. Liverpool hosts Leicester.

SPAIN

Real Madrid looks to rebound from its first loss of the season when it hosts promoted Las Palmas in the Spanish league. Madrid had won its first five league games before losing 3-1 at city rival Atletico Madrid on Sunday. Vinícius Júnior is expected to make his return after missing the match against Atletico because of a stomach illness. The Brazil forward had been out before that with a hamstring issue. Las Palmas defeated Granada in the previous round for its first win of the season. Girona, which entered the midweek games tied at the top with Barcelona, visits Villarreal looking for its six straight victory. In other matches, Athletic Bilbao hosts Getafe, Rayo Vallecano visits Cadiz and Real Sociedad is at Valencia.

ITALY

Inter Milan will be looking to continue its perfect start to the Serie A season when it hosts Sassuolo. Inter has won all five of its Italian league matches, conceding just one goal in the process. However, it found it harder than perhaps expected before winning 1-0 at bottom club Empoli at the weekend and faces a Sassuolo team full of confidence after a 4-2 victory over Juventus. AC Milan is just three points behind its city rival and hosts Claudio Ranieri’s Cagliari, which is still seeking its first win back in Serie A. Udinese and Salernitana are also winless and play defending champion Napoli and Empoli respectively. Last season’s runner-up Lazio is surprisingly struggling and it hosts Torino, while Atalanta travels to Hellas Verona.

GERMANY

Two-time champion Leipzig begins its German Cup defense at Wehen Wiesbaden, which has lost its last two games and failed to win any of its last four in the second division. Leipzig has made a fine start to season, winning its last four Bundesliga games after an opening defeat at Bayer Leverkusen. Wiesbaden will be hoping the visitors are distracted by their upcoming league game against Bayern Munich on Saturday.

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Coco Gauff Comes Back at US Open and Beats Elina Svitolina

USA's Coco Gauff celebrates winning the second set against Ukraine's Elina Svitolina during their women's singles third round match on day five of the US Open tennis tournament at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York City, on August 30, 2024. (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP)
USA's Coco Gauff celebrates winning the second set against Ukraine's Elina Svitolina during their women's singles third round match on day five of the US Open tennis tournament at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York City, on August 30, 2024. (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP)
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Coco Gauff Comes Back at US Open and Beats Elina Svitolina

USA's Coco Gauff celebrates winning the second set against Ukraine's Elina Svitolina during their women's singles third round match on day five of the US Open tennis tournament at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York City, on August 30, 2024. (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP)
USA's Coco Gauff celebrates winning the second set against Ukraine's Elina Svitolina during their women's singles third round match on day five of the US Open tennis tournament at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York City, on August 30, 2024. (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP)

Coco Gauff was not aware that she'd lost five consecutive matches against opponents ranked in the top 50. She was not sure exactly how many points in a row she'd dropped — 11, it turns out — to give away the first set against Elina Svitolina in the US Open’s third round on Friday.
Here, then, is what was entirely clear to Gauff at that moment: “I needed a reset.” So before the second set, the 20-year-old from Florida went to the bathroom, changed part of her outfit and splashed water on her face. Then Gauff went back on court and extended the defense of her first Grand Slam title by turning things around to beat the 27th-seeded Svitolina 3-6, 6-3, 6-3, The Associated Press reported.
“Felt like a new person coming out,” the third-seeded Gauff said. “I just didn’t want to leave the court with any regrets.”
After making mistake after mistake early on at Arthur Ashe Stadium, Gauff managed to reel off nine of 11 games in one stretch and won again despite losing the opening set, something she did three times en route to claiming the 2023 trophy at Flushing Meadows, including in the final against Aryna Sabalenka.
“It was in my mind today. It gave me a lot of confidence,” Gauff said, “just because it felt like déjà vu a little bit.”
On Sunday, Gauff will face No. 13 Emma Navarro, one of her teammates at the Paris Olympics, for a berth in the quarterfinals. Navarro eliminated Gauff in the fourth round at Wimbledon.
“I did a good job of neutralizing her serve and just playing really aggressive from the baseline and pushing back against her groundstrokes,” Navarro, who is from South Carolina and won an NCAA title for Virginia, said about that matchup last month. “And then always getting one more ball back in the court.”
Navarro advanced Friday with a 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 victory over No. 19 Marta Kostyuk. Other women's fourth-round matchups set up in the afternoon were No. 7 Zheng Qinwen vs. No. 24 Donna Vekic, and No. 26 Paula Badosa vs. Wang Yafan. No. 2 Sabalenka was set to play No. 29 Ekaterina Alexandrova at night, with the winner to face No. 33 Elise Mertens, who outlasted No. 14 Madison Keys in three sets.
The first men’s fourth-round pairing that was set up was No. 6 Andrey Rublev against No. 9 Grigor Dimitrov. No. 8 Casper Ruud will meet No. 12-seeded Taylor Fritz.
Zheng-Vekic is a rematch of the gold medal match at the Summer Games four weeks ago; Zheng won that one.
Vekic beat Gauff in the third round at the Olympics, part of Gauff's recent drought against top-50 foes. That also was part of a recent slump that saw Gauff win just five of her previous nine matches.
Such a contrast to a year ago, when Gauff won 18 of 19, and 12 in a row, along the way to two tuneup titles on hard courts and then the championship at the U.S. Open that made her the first U.S. teenager to triumph at Flushing Meadows since Serena Williams in 1999.
By the conclusion of one set against Svitolina, it seemed as if another loss might be in the offing. Gauff’s totals were 16 unforced errors — nine on backhands — and just seven winners. She put only 45% of her first serves in. She went 0 for 3 on break points. She allowed Svitolina to claim 19 of the 28 points that lasted more than four strokes.
All of those numbers got better across the last two sets as Gauff tried to be more aggressive with her forehands and be more careful with her backhands. And something else changed, at the behest of her coaches: Gauff got the partisan crowd more involved.
Svitolina said afterward she was bothered by an ankle injury picked up last week
“I feel like she started to go (for) more a little bit. But to be fair, I didn’t play the way that I wanted to play. ... Then she started to be more alive," said Svitolina, a three-time Slam semifinalist. "And, of course, the crowd was behind her."
Everything began to change for Gauff on Friday after 1 hour, 10 minutes, when she broke to lead 4-2 in the second set, smacking a cross-court forehand winner. She celebrated with a yell of “Come on!” and raised her left hand to wiggle her fingers and ask the spectators to get louder.
Soon that set belonged to Gauff, who closed it with a 94 mph ace, shook a fist and shouted.
In the third, with UConn women’s basketball stars Paige Bueckers and Azzi Fudd sitting in her guest box at Ashe, Gauff broke right away, then held to go up 2-0 with the help of one 38-stroke point that she took when Svitolina sent a backhand wide.
Soon it was 5-1 for Gauff, whose only late wobble came when she served for the match at 5-2. She wasted three match points and got broken there. But Gauff broke right back to close things out.
“I’m glad that I had that match,” Gauff said, “because I think it just makes me match-tough and gets me ready, probably, for future challenges.”