Gauff’s WTA Finals title ends her season with a big turnaround

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP):

Coco Gauff pays attention to what people say about her online and occasionally takes pleasure in clapping back, so it should not be a surprise that she took to social media to type out a message after wrapping up 2024 by winning the WTA Finals and the $4.8 million check that came with it.

“lol safe to say I beat the bad season allegations,” Gauff wrote.

After defeating the women ranked Nos. 1 and 2 – Aryna Sabalenka and Iga Swiatek – earlier in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Gauff got past Olympic gold medallist Zheng Qinwen 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (2) on Saturday in the title match. That allowed the No. 3 Gauff to close her year with a 54-17 record and three trophies.

“There’s been a lot of ups and downs. At moments, it felt great. At other moments, it felt awful. Basically, a typical year on tour,” the 20-year-old Floridian said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

“The worst? Definitely my US Open loss. I felt that was just a hard loss for me because I double-faulted so many times,” Gauff said with a self-deprecating chuckle. “It felt like I was close but just didn’t give myself the best chance.”

How did she put aside that 19-double-fault, fourth-round loss to Emma Navarro in September as the defending champion at Flushing Meadows? That’s an important question because as disappointing as the setback was – where it happened, how it happened – that marked a pivotal moment.

From there, Gauff split from coach Brad Gilbert and hired Matt Daly to work alongside Jean-Christophe “JC” Faurel on her team.

And from there, Gauff went 13-2 at her last three tournaments, including two titles and a semi-final run.

“The key is when you reach a low, the only way you can go is up,” Gauff explained. “So at that point, I just said, ‘Well, I have to get better at some things and just try to do that.’ Being a tennis player, you can’t miss a bunch of tournaments just to practise – I mean, you can, but I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want to take that route – so I just decided to be willing to accept the losses and wins while working on things.”

So far, so good.

One significant improvement: Gauff averaged 4.6 double-faults across her five matches at the WTA Finals, certainly much better than at the US Open.

In Saturday’s final, Gauff produced more aces (five) than double-faults (four) and turned in a higher first-serve percentage (64 to 62) and a higher winning percentage on first-serve points (70 to 62) than Zheng, one of the tour’s top servers.

There was not a thing that was easy about this triumph.

Gauff’s run included those victories over Sabalenka (in the semi-finals) and Swiatek (in round-robin play), making the American the youngest player to win against the top two women at one tournament since Maria Sharapova at the 2006 US Open.