Top seed and reigning champion Coco Gauff has walked into the quarter-finals of the ASB Classic, taking an emphatic straight sets victory over Czech Republic's Brenda Fruhvirtova.
Gauff, who won the 2023 title without even dropping a set, has continued her dominance to start the new year and needed just 67 minutes to advance, dropping only three games in the process for a 6-3, 6-0 win.
After falling behind early in the first set, Gauff clawed her way back to take the first set 6-3, including two breaks of Fruhvirtova's serve, and went 1-0 up in just 40 minutes.
That momentum carried into the second set, where Gauff broke serve twice more inside the first three games to go 3-0 up.
Another break gave Gauff a 5-0 lead and saw the 19-year-old serve for the match – where despite Fruhvirtova taking the game to deuce, wasn't enough to prevent the inevitable.
All up, Gauff broke serve five times, as well as sending down five aces and hitting 21 winners in her procession into the next round.
The American's only major issue came from her serve, with four double faults in her win, however that was merely a blip in what was otherwise a convincing win for the tournament favourite.
Earlier, seventh seed Petra Martic also marched into the quarter-finals, courtesy of a straight sets win of her own by defeating China's Yue Yuan.
The Croatian managed four breaks of serve in her 6-2, 6-2 win, which lasted just shy of an hour and a quarter on centre court.
Martic advances to the quarter-final, where she'll meet American Emma Navarro, who herself secured a straight sets win on Wednesday, beating Russia's Elina Avanesyan.
The round of 16 concludes later on Thursday, where Switzerland's Lulu Sun takes on eighth seed Varvara Gracheva, before the day concludes with a blockbuster tie between wildcard Emma Raducanu and top seed Elina Svitolina.
