Practice makes perfect for Gauff in historic Beijing win

Coco Gauff scuffled a bit on her way to the China Open final.

She’s got a brand-new coaching team and was working on a few things. In her mind, Gauff was playing practice matches. It wasn’t surprising that she dropped the opening set in the fourth round, quarterfinals and semifinals.

That was when her competitive intensity bubbled to the surface. Up against it, she won all three of those matches in three sets -- over Naomi Osaka, qualifier Yuliia Starodubtseva and Paula Badosa.

Beijing: Scores | Draws

Sunday’s final, though, was something entirely different, for the American is a terrific tournament closer. The double faults and unforced errors that dogged her in previous rounds evaporated, and Gauff threw down a scorching 6-1, 6-3 victory over Karolina Muchova.

In 16 years of WTA 1000 play, Dinara Safina is the only other player to win a final after losing the first set of her three previous matches.

The secret, Gauff explained later, is going in with a relaxed state of mind.

“I was just like, `This match is not going to change my life,’ ” she said. “I knew regardless of the result today, I was proud. Honestly, I was just telling myself the whole match I’m proud of myself, how I was able to overcome and still work on things that I’ve been practicing on, too, and stick to it.”

Posting a historic statistic, Gauff has now won each of her first seven Hologic WTA Tour hard-court finals, which is something no other woman has done in more than a half-century of Open era play. She’s 8-for-9 in finals overall.

“Honestly, when you get that far, you’re just happy to be in the final,” Gauff explained. “I think it’s just being relaxed. My first final, which is when I was 15, is kind of like the worst because you’re like, `I'm never going to get this opportunity again,’ which is completely not true. That is how I felt in my first Grand Slam final as well.

“I think the experience of winning in the past, I realize that, yes, winning is great. It feels great right now. But tomorrow I’m going to wake up and it’s a different day. Seventy percent of the world doesn’t know anything about whether I won or lost, probably even more.”

In 2023, Gauff won titles in Washington, D.C., Cincinnati and New York, her first major championship. Relatively speaking, 2024 had been a quiet one for Gauff.

After losing in the fourth round of this year’s US Open, she and her team dismissed coach Brad Gilbert -- in some minds, the architect of that breakthrough -- after 14 months.

Matt Daly, who coached Denis Shapovalov last year, joined Jean-Christophe Faurel in Beijing for their debut with Team Gauff. They’re now a perfect 1-for-1, and Gauff will carry that confidence forward to the season’s last WTA 1000, the Dongfeng Voyah · Wuhan Open, where play begins Monday.

Before the final, Muchova described Gauff as “a moving wall” and added, “It’s tough to hit some winners and make it shorter.”

That defensive threat seemed to manifest itself in the first set when Muchova attempted to force the issue and kept missing.

Is there something about Gauff’s game that makes Muchova uncomfortable?

“Probably, yes,” Muchova told reporters afterward. “I mean, I lost to her three times in a row. I’ll say very similar losses. It was always the latest rounds of the tournaments when I got many matches under the belt.

“It’s very physical with her. I felt like the second one always in the rallies.”

Gauff was relentless, breaking Muchova’s heretofore unbreakable serve five times. Gauff was credited with 24 winners, against only eight unforced errors. Muchova’s numbers ran the other way: 14 and 24.

When Gauff wins the opening set, it’s lights-out. She’s won 37 of her past 39 matches when taking the first frame and has now won 21 straight, losing only one of those second sets.

So, 20-year-old Gauff joins an elite class of early achievers, becoming the second-youngest player since the WTA 1000 format was introduced to win her first two WTA 1000 finals, after Bianca Andreescu.

Gauff becomes the fourth player to win multiple WTA 1000 titles before turning 21, joining Iga Swiatek, Caroline Wozniacki and Andreescu. Gauff is also the youngest player to contest more than 100 matches (101) in WTA 1000s.

“I feel like every tournament, it’s a new stat or new record,” Gauff said. “I’m very thankful.

“[Winning], it feels great. It’s a personal achievement. I think I’m realizing more and more each day that tennis is not a measure of my value as a person. I think the more you realize that, the more relaxed these tournaments become.”