CORI GAUFF, the teenage tennis sensation, is set to break into the world’s top 100 after making it into her inaugural WTA Tour quarter-final on October 9.

The American ace, who hit the circuit with aplomb in her breakthrough tournament at this year’s Wimbledon, has served up a real roller-coaster ride at the Linz Open in Austria.

The plucky 15-year-old’s confidence was zapped on Monday, following a 74-minute 6-4 6-2 defeat at the hands of Germany’s Tamara Korpatsch in the qualifying round.

But injured Maria Sakkari withdrew from the event just 15 minutes before her 1st round match, with Gauff given the nod to replace the Greek as a lucky loser. 

Gauff emerged a 6-3 7-6(3) victor in a low quality encounter, full of unforced errors, against Swiss qualifier Stefanie Voegele.

And Ukrainian Kateryna Kozlova retired injured, due to a left lower leg injury, on Wednesday trailing Gauff 4-6 6-4 2-0 in a real ding-dong battle.

As the youngest player to reach a WTA quarter-final since Bulgarian Sesil Karatantcheva in January 2005, Gauff has bounced back in style after her dreadful defeat to Japan’s hard-hitting Naomi Osaka at the US Open that left her in tears.

Gauff, who breaks into the world’s top 100 when next week’s rankings are rolled out and stands provisionally at no.94, will be making her first Grand Slam event of 2020 at January’s Australian Open. If she can maintain her lofty position on the circuit then she will receive an automatic place in the major rather than apply for wildcard entry.

Yet she has surprisingly struggled with her second serve throughout the Austrian event, so will need to swiftly fine tune it.

Instead of packing her bags at the start of this week, the French-based teenager is now eying the ultimate prize of scooping the Linz Open tournament and once more surprising the tennis world.