Coco Gauff didn’t hide that she was very happy and proud of pulling off something that had never been done before as the 20-year-old admits she is now curious to see if and when someone will emulate her record.
On Sunday, the American tennis star annihilated Karolina Muchova 6-1 6-3 in the Beijing final to claim her second WTA 1000 title. Now, she has seven titles in her collection and a very impressive record of 7-1 in her finals played.
Each of those seven titles came on hard courts. By doing so, Gauff is the only player in the Open Era to have all of her first seven hard-court finals. Her lone final loss came at the 2022 French Open, when she was ousted by Iga Swiatek on the clay courts of Roland Garros.
Also, the 20-year-old became the first American since Serena Williams in 2013 to win Beijing.
Following her latest success, the world No. 4 addressed making history but also joining the American tennis icon on the Beijing winners list.
“That’s pretty cool, considering there’s been so many great players before me in the Open Era. Honestly, with the stat things, I feel like every tournament, it’s a new stat or new record. I’m very thankful. I would be excited to see when the next stat is, the next girl, I don’t know who, will be the first person to do this since Coco Gauff. I’m excited to see that, honestly,” the 2024 Beijing champion admitted.
“Especially honestly it means a lot when I saw that the last American woman to win this was Serena Williams. Honestly, anytime my name is mentioned in whatever sentence hers is, it’s like a huge honor to do something no one has ever done before. It is pretty cool. I didn’t know that was on the line. I don’t know if it would have affected my mentality today. That’s pretty cool. I hope somebody else breaks it. I think records are meant to be broken, honestly.”
Coco Gauff© China Open/Instagram – Fair Use
Gauff reveals what helped her play so well versus Muchova
After struggling throughout the entire summer, the fourth-seeded American definitely looked a bit shaky in some of her matches at the China Open. On the other side, the Czech was in absolutely great form as she clinched a couple of very dominant wins before also sending Aryna Sabalenka and Zheng Qinwen packing out of the tournament.
With that being said, the feeling was that it was fair to consider Muchova the favorite. But when the final started, Gauff looked out there like the absolute favorite after claiming two breaks in the first set and winning the opener with just one dropped game.
While the American collapsed a bit at the start of the second set and lost the first two games, it didn’t take her long to respond after she earned three breaks in the rest of the set and conceived no breaks to complete her dominant win.
Later, Gauff shared that her mindset was to think about it as something “not life-changing” and try to be relaxed to the fullest.
“I was super relaxed going in. I was just like, I don’t know, this match is not going to change my life. When you go into matches like that, it’s super relaxed. I think also the experience of winning a 1000-level title in the past. Yeah, that tournament, it was great confidence. Again, it didn’t change my life. 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,” she said.
Gauff on coming inches away from securing a WTA Finals ticket
By collecting 1,000 points in Beijing, the 20-year-old now has 4,968 ranking points on the Race to the WTA Finals and she has all but confirmed her place in Riyadh since ninth-placed Danielle Collins has around 1,800 fewer points.
For the American, it will be her third appearance at the prestigious season-ending tournament.
“I guess making Finals honestly wasn’t the goal of this tournament. Honestly, I kind of told my team I wanted to play Beijing. We were planning on just coming to Wuhan. I just felt like I needed to play, have fun. I enjoy Beijing. I feel like here, it just makes me more focused in other tournaments just because it is so different from where I live, where I’m from. I think it enhances my game,” the world No. 4 noted.
Meanwhile, Gauff is now preparing to kick off her campaign at this week’s WTA 1000 tournament in Wuhan, where she is the No. 4 seed and plays against the winner of the match between Ashlyn Krueger and Viktoriya Tomova.