No.3 seed Coco Gauff of the United States survived a topsy-turvy encounter at the Internazionali BNL d'Italia on Saturday, outlasting lucky loser Jaqueline Cristian of Romania 6-1, 0-6, 6-3 in their third-round match.

Reigning US Open champion Gauff shook off a sudden change in fortunes in the second set, eventually prevailing over World No.68 Cristian in 2 hours and 4 minutes. Gauff, a Rome semifinalist in 2021, is into the Round of 16 at the event for the third time in her career.

In her next match, Gauff will square off against former World No.2 Paula Badosa of Spain, who edged past Diana Shnaider 5-7, 6-4, 6-4 earlier on Saturday. Badosa leads Gauff 3-1 in their head-to-head, including a 6-3, 6-0 victory on clay at Madrid last year. 

Here are some more key facts and figures from Gauff's win over Cristian:

17: Gauff collected her 17th consecutive win against an opponent ranked outside the Top 50 on Saturday. Her last loss to a player ranked below 50th was to her fellow American Grand Slam champion Sofia Kenin in the first round of Wimbledon last year.

Must See

15: Gauff notched her 15th match-win at a clay-court WTA 1000 event -- the most by any player before the age of 21 (dating back to the creation of the WTA 1000 tier in 2009). Caroline Wozniacki is in second place, with 14 clay-court WTA 1000 match-wins before her 21st birthday.

33: It took a protracted 33 minutes for Gauff to lead 4-0 in the first set, with the players combining for 10 deuces and seven break points in those four games alone. Despite the lengthy games, Gauff dominated the scoreboard in the first set when all was said and done.

4: Cristian fought back hard to win the second set, where she never faced a break point. Gauff had four of her 15 double faults in the second set, including on break point to fall behind 4-0.

22: Gauff took control for good with a break at love for 2-1 in the third set. Gauff got out of peril one more time, saving break point in a hold for 4-2, then broke at love once again to seal the win. Gauff finished the match with 22 winners to Cristian's 18.

0-5: Despite the loss to Gauff and an earlier loss to Varvara Gracheva in qualies, Cristian is still having a strong clay-court swing in 2024, having also reached the Charleston quarterfinals and the Madrid third round as a qualifier. However, Cristian is now 0-5 against Top 10 players in her career.

2: Gauff is still in with a opportunity to rise to a new career-high ranking of World No.2 after Rome finishes. However, she needs to reach at least the semifinals to have a chance of surpassing Aryna Sabalenka at the No.2 spot.