Coco Gauff sweeps Jasmine Paolini aside to revitalise WTA Finals defence
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Coco Gauff of the US in action during her 6-3, 6-2 WTA Finals group-stage win over Italy's Jasmine Paolini at King Saud University Indoor Arena in Riyadh on Nov 4, 2025.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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RIYADH – Defending champion Coco Gauff put on a clinical performance to beat Jasmine Paolini 6-3, 6-2 and eliminate the Italian as she registered her first win at the WTA Finals on Nov 4.
The 21-year-old, who made 17 double faults when she lost to fellow American Jessica Pegula in her first game in Stefanie Graf Group on Nov 2, committed only three double faults this time as she dominated the eighth seed.
“I knew today’s win was important to keep myself in the tournament. If I lost, I would have been out,” world No. 3 Gauff said.
The American took just over 10 minutes to build a 3-0 lead in the first set, before Paolini went through a nine-minute battle to fend off three break points and win her first game.
Paolini got a break, but Gauff drew the Italian into backhand rallies and won points with precise cross-court shots to claim the next game and take a 5-3 lead before holding to win the set.
The French Open champion’s strategy of making Paolini run constantly from one side of court to the other paid off again, when Gauff got back-to-back breaks to go 5-2 up in the second.
She secured victory with a powerful serve that Paolini could only hit into the net.
“I was just trying to play relaxed. I’ve played a WTA Finals where I lost all three of my matches (in 2022),” said the two-time Grand Slam champion.
“So I tried to avoid that today.”
“I thought I served smart. I don’t think Jasmine was 100 per cent today and I would like to wish her well. Playing singles and doubles here is not easy.”
In overnight action on Nov 3, Amanda Anisimova beat fellow American Madison Keys 4-6, 6-3, 6-2.
“It was quite a battle out there. Just really happy with the way I was able to turn around in the second set and turn that frown upside down,” said Anisimova, who was the runner-up at Wimbledon and the US Open in 2025.
With Anisimova’s win, Kazakhstan’s world No. 6 Elena Rybakina became the first player to book her semi-final spot following two straight wins.
Ahead of top seed Aryna Sabalenka’s match against Pegula on Nov 4, which ended after press time, it was announced that the world No. 1 will take on Australian maverick Nick Kyrgios in a “Battle of the Sexes” exhibition match in Dubai on Dec 28.
Sabalenka will face Kyrgios in a modern rendition of tennis icon Billie Jean King’s 1973 showdown with fellow American Bobby Riggs.
It was a match that turned out to be a watershed moment for both tennis and the women’s movement.
Played in Houston’s Astrodome, some 90 million tuned in worldwide to watch King storm to a straight-set win which propelled the fight for equality in sports.
Aged 55 then Riggs had beaten Australia’s Margaret Court four months earlier before King, 29, exacted revenge.
In 1992, eight-time Grand Slam champion Jimmy Connors, then 40, beat 18-time Major winner Martina Navratilova, then 35, under modified rules.
Meanwhile, Novak Djokovic has confirmed his participation in the Nov 9-16 ATP Finals in Turin, Italy’s tennis federation chief Angelo Binaghi said, easing concerns that the 24-time Grand Slam champion may pull out of the season finale.
World No. 5 Djokovic, who withdrew from the season-ender in 2024 due to injury, skipped the Paris Masters and has not played since losing to qualifier Valentin Vacherot in the Shanghai Masters semi-finals in October.
“We have confirmation that Djokovic will be in Turin,” Binaghi told Italian radio channel Rai Gr Parlamento on Nov 3. REUTERS, AFP
