Coco Gauff is perhaps saving the best for last.
In what is shaping up to be potentially her best week of the season, Coco Gauff beat world number one Aryna Sabalenka in straight sets on Friday to set up a championship battle against Olympic gold medalist Zheng Qinwen this weekend during the WTA circuit finals. .
The triumph came just a day after Gauff beat Iga Swiatek, who had held the top spot for most of the past three years, also in straight sets, even though Swiatek had won 11 of her previous 12 meetings.
This decisive week is all the more surprising because Gauff fired her head coach, Brad Gilbert, in September and said she planned to treat the final months of the season as an extended preseason before 2025.
That’s why. Gauff won the title in Beijing and is now poised to win the sport’s biggest purse, a $3.9 million payday provided she can beat Zheng, who may be the sport’s only female player left sexier than her.
Zheng recently reached the final in Wuhan and won a title in Japan the following week before the Tour Finals. She beat Barbora Krejcikova, the Wimbledon champion, in straight sets on Friday to advance to the title match.
Gauff and Sabalenka fired, jumping at every opportunity to try to push each other away and punch across the court. They traded breaks of serve early on, then Sabalenka appeared to take the lead when she broke Gauff a second time at 5-5 and served for the first set.
Gauff, remaining calm in one of those close moments that have rattled her for much of the season, backed away, then took advantage of a few sloppy shots from Sabalenka in the tiebreak, including a miss on open court on the point of set, to move forward.
A back-and-forth second set followed, belying the ultimate final score of 6-3 for Gauff. There were four consecutive breaks of serve, but the first saw Gauff take a 4-1 lead with a double break, giving him confidence in a chaotic final four games.
Ultimately, Gauff’s greater strength in the backcourt made the difference, as in her round-robin match against world-class Swiatek. Gauff and Sabalenka both hit 13 winners Friday, but Gauff made 29 unforced errors to Sabalenka’s 45. Against Swiatek, Gauff lost the winner count 10-15 but committed 33 unforced errors to Swiatek’s 47.
Earlier in the day, Zheng took advantage of a tiring Krejcikova – who was playing Thursday night – to advance 6-3, 7-5. Zheng and Gauff both make their debut in a Tour Finals final; Zheng in his debut, Gauff in his third participation in the event.
Gauff is the youngest player to reach a WTA Tour final since Caroline Wozniacki in 2010. She probably would have predicted this for herself after enduring a difficult summer in which her serve and forehand often let her down.
She parted ways with Gilbert, with whom she won the 2023 US Open, before hiring grip specialist Matt Daly to work alongside long-time collaborator JC Faurel. She immediately won the China Open in Beijing, before losing to Sabalenka in a tight three-set match in Wuhan despite making more than 20 double faults.
Win or lose on Saturday, she will approach the offseason in a much better state of mind than in September after having followed two appearances in the semi-finals of the Grand Slam with two exits in the fourth round, losing twice against Emma Navarro, her teammate of the tournament. Olympic team which, in both cases, simply had to hold steady and let Gauff fight.
Zheng has progressed since his early elimination at Wimbledon, winning a title in Palermo, Sicily, before Olympic gold in Paris. She lost to Sabalenka in the US Open quarterfinals and Wuhan final then won the WTA 500 in Tokyo before arriving in Riyadh. She is 31-5 since Wimbledon, with three of those five losses coming against Sabalenka.
Sabalenka’s defeat means she misses the opportunity to extend her lead over Swiatek at the top of the WTA rankings as the season draws to a close. Both women earned 400 points at the event, leaving Sabalenka with 9,416 and Swiatek with 8,370. Gauff and Zheng will play the final on Saturday, November 9, no later than 7 p.m. Riyadh / 11 a.m. EST.
This article was originally published in Athletics.
Tennis, Women’s Tennis
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