Coco Gauff comes back at the US Open and beats Elina Svitolina. Emma Navarro is…see more

NEW YORK (AP) — 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 U.S. 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.

“Felt like a new person coming out,” the third-seeded Gauff said. “I just didn’t want to leave the court with any regrets.”

Novak Djokovic, the other defending champion, was shocked in the third round with a 6-4, 6-4, 2-6, 6-4 loss to 28th-seeded Alexei Popyrin. Popyrin will face No. 20 seed France Tiafoe, who outlasted 13th-seeded Ben Shelton 4-6, 7-5, 6-7 (5), 6-4, 6-3 across 4 hours, 3 minutes to reach the fourth round at Flushing Meadows for the fifth consecutive year.

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 beat No. 29 Ekaterina Alexandrova 2-6, 6-1, 6-2 in the latest-starting women’s match in U.S. Open history and will 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, and No. 4 Alexander Zverev advanced to take on American Brandon Nakashima after finishing his four-set victory over Tomas Martin Etcheverry at 2:35 a.m.

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.