Coco Gauff will be defending her 2024 title at this year’s WTA Finals, which begins on Saturday, November 1. The American will be eager to end her season on a high note at the elite tournament featuring some of her biggest rivals.
While Gauff endured a rather rough patch between her second career Major triumph at the French Open and the North American hardcourt swing, she righted the ship with her performance at the China Open and the Wuhan Open in October. The 21-year-old was the third player to qualify for the 2025 WTA Finals in Riyadh on account of her semifinal run in Beijing.
Coco Gauff’s WTA Finals Title Defense Will Be a Mountain to Climb Over the Next Week
The round-robin group stages for the year-end championships were revealed earlier on Tuesday, October 28, pitting Coco Gauff with the likes of Aryna Sabalenka, Jessica Pegula, and Jasmine Paolini. The World No. 3 finds herself in a somewhat tough group, which will make the task of defending her 1,300 WTA ranking points from last year quite a task.
During the 2024 edition of the hardcourt event, the two-time Major winner lost her first match to Barbora Krejčíková 5-7, 4-6, winning 0 points as a result. She then hit top form in the next two matches, securing 200 points each from her 6-3, 6-4 victory against Iga Świątek and her 6-3, 6-2 rout of Jessica Pegula.
The draw is set in Riyadh! 📝
Who will be crowned the WTA Finals champion this year?@WTAFinalsRiyadh | #WTAFinalsRiyadh pic.twitter.com/09nTxjEmWm
— wta (@WTA)
Having ended her group second after points-leader Krejčíková, the American recorded her first-ever title-match appearance at the WTA Finals by beating Aryna Sabalenka 7-6(4), 6-3. By virtue of her semifinal win, the 21-year-old nabbed 400 ranking points more. Had she lost in the final, her tally would’ve been an overall 800 (2*200+400) points.
However, the World No. 3 ended up going all the way in Riyadh, overcoming Zheng Qinwen in a three-and-a-half-hour-long championship match by a scoreline of 3-6, 6-4, 7-6(2). Consequently, she was rewarded with 900 ranking points on top of her round-robin total, meaning she secured an overall 1,300 (2*200+900) points.
Coco Gauff Doesn’t Have a Positive Head-to-Head Record Against Her 2025 WTA Finals Group Rivals
Coco Gauff is the second-highest-ranked player in the Steffi Graf Group after Aryna Sabalenka. The American has gone 12-12 in her career encounters against Sabalenka and her other two group rivals, Jasmine Paolini and Jessica Pegula.
Quite notably, Gauff leads the World No. 1 6-5 in their head-to-head meetings on the WTA Tour, having gotten the better of the latter to win her two Major titles at the 2023 US Open and the 2025 French Open. While the youngster is tied 4-4 with the Belarusian in their hardcourt clashes, she did win their last match at the 2024 WTA Finals.
Paolini, meanwhile, has come up trumps against the World No. 3 in three of their last four encounters in Cincinnati, Rome, and Stuttgart, bringing their head-to-head record to 3-3. The two players split their last two hardcourt clashes at this year’s Cincinnati Open and this year’s Wuhan Open.
Gauff trails fellow American Pegula 3-4 in their head-to-head meetings on the WTA Tour. Although the 21-year-old beat the World No. 5 en route to her titles at last year’s WTA Finals and this year’s Wuhan Open, she had lost their first three hardcourt clashes at the 2023 WTA Finals, the 2023 National Bank Open, and the 2022 Dubai Tennis Championships.