Coco Gauff may be saving the best for last.
In what may be her best week of the season, Coco Gauff defeated world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka in two turbulent sets on Friday to set up a championship battle against Olympic gold medalist Zheng Qinwen this weekend on the WTA Tour Finals. .
The victory came just a day after Gauff defeated Iga Swiatek, who held the top spot in the rankings for most of the past three years, also in straight sets, even though Swiatek had won 11 of their previous 12 meetings.
The breakthrough week is even more surprising when you consider that Gauff fired her head coach, Brad Gilbert, in September and said she planned to treat the final months of the season as extended preparation for the season before 2025.
So far. Gauff stormed to the title in Beijing and now stands on the cusp of winning the sport’s biggest prize, a $3.9 million reward, provided she can beat Zheng, who may be the only player in the sport who is even hotter than her.
Zheng recently reached the final in Wuhan and won a title in Japan the following week, ahead of the Tour final. She defeated Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova in straight sets on Friday to qualify for the title match.
Gauff and Sabalenka came out firing and took every opportunity to try to push each other back and punch through the court. They exchanged service breaks early, but Sabalenka appeared to seize the advantage when she broke Gauff for a second time at 5-5 and served for the first set.
Gauff, keeping her cool in one of those tight moments that have bedeviled her for most of the season, broke back and then took advantage of some sloppy strokes from Sabalenka in the tiebreak, including a set point miss, to take the lead come.
A second set back and forth followed, with the eventual final score of 6-3 for Gauff being dismissed. There were four consecutive breaks of service, but the first saw Gauff take a 4-1 lead with a double break, giving her certainty in a chaotic last four matches.
Ultimately, Gauff’s greater solidity from the back of the court made the difference, as she did in her round-robin match against world champion Swiatek. Gauff and Sabalenka both hit 13 winners on Friday, but Gauff made 29 unforced errors to Sabalenka’s 45. Against Swiatek, Gauff lost the winner count 10-15, but hit 33 unforced errors to Swiatek’s 47.
Earlier in the day, Zheng took advantage of a tiring Krejcikova – who played in the evening slot on Thursday – to advance 6-3, 7-5. Both Zheng and Gauff are making their debuts in a Tour Finals final; Zheng on her debut, Gauff on her third appearance at the event.
Gauff is the youngest player to reach a WTA Tour Finals final since Caroline Wozniacki in 2010. She probably predicted that for herself after a tough summer in which her serve and forehand regularly let her down.
She split with Gilbert, with whom she won the 2023 US Open, before hiring grip specialist Matt Daly to team up with her 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 hitting more than twenty double faults.
Win or lose on Saturday, she’ll enter the offseason in a much better headspace than where she was in September, following two Grand Slams semifinals with two fourth-round exits, losing twice to Emma Navarro, her teammate on the Olympic team who in both cases just had to stay steady and let Gauff beat himself.
Zheng has grown enormously since her early exit at Wimbledon, winning a title in Palermo, Sicily, before winning Olympic gold in Paris. She lost to Sabalenka in the quarter-finals of the US Open and the Wuhan final then won the WTA 500 in Tokyo before arriving in Riyadh. She has a 31-5 record since Wimbledon, including three of five losses against Sabalenka.
Sabalenka’s defeat means she misses the chance to extend her lead over Swiatek at the top of the WTA rankings as the season draws to a close. Both women reached 400 points on the event, leaving Sabalenka at 9,416 and Swiatek at 8,370. Gauff and Zheng will play the final on Saturday, November 9, starting no later than 7:00 PM in Riyadh / 11:00 AM EST.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Tennis, Women’s tennis
2024 The athletic media company
