Coco Gauff and her youth made history at the WTA Finals

Coco GauffNo. 3 in the WTA, ended the year the same way it started: with a title under his arm. In January, the young American started the 2024 season on his right foot, becoming the champion in Auckland, New Zealand, beating the Ukrainian in the final. Elina Svitolina scores 6-7 (4), 6-3 and 6-3.

Exactly 10 months later the photo is almost the same. After a more than difficult match in Riyadh, which lasted more than three hours, she was able to defeat Chinese Qinwen Zheng (7th place) with a score of 3-6, 6-4 and 7-6 (2) and win the world title. WTA Final.

What the Atlanta native did in Saudi Arabia is no small feat considering she was barely 20 years old. After lifting the Master trophy, She became the sixth player before she turned 21. win a Grand Slam tournament (US Open 2023), minimum WTA 1000 (Cincinnati 2023 and Beijing 2024) And WTA Final since 1990, the year the current tournament format was introduced.

Thus, he joined the select list, which includes Monica Seles, Martina Hingis, Maria Sharapova and sisters (Venus and Serena) Williams.

coconut stores eight consecutive hard court finals wonbeing the first since then Serena Williams (she won 12 between the 2013 US Open and 2015 Cincinnati) and is the youngest to do so since then. Martina Hingis in 1998.

Gauff’s performances in the finals are excellent, and there is one fact that gives much more value to what the student of Jean Christophe Forel and Matt Daly did. Only Nancy Ritchie and Anna Smashnovawith ten, has more wins than Coco (she has 9) in her first ten Open Era finals.

So far, the only deciding match he failed to win was at Roland Garros 2022, in which he was defeated by Iga Swiatek.