Coco Gauff beats Aryna Sabalenka at WTA Tour Finals, sets up Zheng Qinwen final

Coco Gauff might save the best for last.

In possibly her best week of the season, Coco Gauff defeated world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka in two tumultuous sets on Friday and set herself up for a championship fight against Olympic gold medalist Zheng Qinwen at the WTA Tour Finals this weekend.

The triumph came just a day after Gauff defeated Iga Swiatek, who had held the top spot in the rankings for most of the past three years, also in straight sets, although Swiatek had won 11 of their last 12 meetings.

The breakthrough week is all the more surprising considering Gauff fired her head coach Brad Gilbert in September and said she plans to view the final months of the season as an extended preseason through 2025.

So much for that. Gauff stormed to the title in Beijing and is now on the verge of winning the sport's biggest prize money, $3.9 million, assuming she can beat Zheng, who may be the only hotter player in the sport is than her.

Zheng recently reached the final in Wuhan and won a title in Japan the following week before the Tour Finals. She defeated Barbora Krejcikova, the Wimbledon champion, in straight sets on Friday to qualify for the title match.

Gauff and Sabalenka came out firing, taking every opportunity to push each other back and punch through the pitch. They exchanged early breaks of serve and then Sabalenka seemed to take advantage when she broke Gauff a second time to make it 5-5 and serve for the first set.

Gauff, keeping her cool in one of those difficult moments that had rattled her most of the season, recovered and then took advantage of some sloppy shots from Sabalenka in the tiebreak, including an open-court miss, to reach the set point to push yourself forward.

This was followed by a back and forth in the second set, which destroyed the final score of 6:3 for Gauff. There were four consecutive breaks of serve, but on the first, Gauff built a 4-1 lead with a double break, securing safety for the chaotic final four games.

Ultimately, Gauff's greater solidity at the back of the field made the difference, as it did in her round-robin match against world-class player Swiatek. Gauff and Sabalenka both scored 13 winners on Friday, but Gauff made 29 unforced errors to Sabalenka's 45. Against Swiatek, Gauff lost the winning count 10-15, but made 33 unforced errors to Swiatek's 47.

Earlier in the day, Zheng took advantage of a tiring Krejcikova playing Thursday night to take a 6-3, 7-5 lead. Both Zheng and Gauff are making their Tour Finals debut; Zheng in her debut, Gauff in her third appearance at the event.

Gauff is the youngest player to reach the final of the WTA Tour Finals since Caroline Wozniacki in 2010. She probably would have predicted that herself after enduring a tough summer in which her serve and forehand frequently failed.

She parted ways with Gilbert, with whom she won the 2023 US Open, before hiring grip specialist Matt Daly to work with long-time collaborator JC Faurel. She won the China Open in Beijing straight away before losing to Sabalenka in a close three-set match in Wuhan despite more than 20 double faults.

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Whether she wins or loses on Saturday, she will start the off-season with a much better lead than she did in September, having been eliminated twice in the fourth round following two Grand Slam semifinal appearances, twice against Emma Navarro, her Grand teammate Slams, losing Olympic team, which in both cases just had to stay calm and let Gauff beat himself.

Zheng has made a big comeback since her early exit from Wimbledon, winning a title in Palermo, Sicily, before winning Olympic gold in Paris. She lost to Sabalenka in the quarterfinals of the US Open and the Wuhan final, then won the WTA 500 in Tokyo before arriving in Riyadh. Since Wimbledon she has a record of 31:5, three of those five defeats came against Sabalenka.

Sabalenka's defeat means she misses the opportunity to extend her lead over Swiatek at the top of the WTA rankings as the season comes to a close. Both women earned 400 points in the event, with Sabalenka scoring 9,416 and Swiatek scoring 8,370. Gauff and Zheng will compete in the final on Saturday, November 9th, starting no earlier than 7pm Riyadh / 11am EST.

(Luo Chen/Xinhua via Getty Images)