Breaking: Gauff Clinches Second WTA 1000 Title with Dominant Victory Over Muchova in Beijing
Coco Gauff is a WTA 1000 champion again after she managed to beat Karolina Muchova in the final of the 2024 China Open.
The 20-year-old super-talented player from the United States has enjoyed a very rocky season. While she often names last year’s first-round defeat at Wimbledon as the lowest point in her tennis career, Gauff certainly wouldn’t disagree that she got close to that a few times this year.
Her play wasn’t terrible, she even won a title at the ASB Classic in Auckland, but after that, Gauff failed to defend her trophies at the Cincinnati Open and the US Open, and she couldn’t defend her Citi Open title either, as she competed at the Paris Olympics.
She just struggled a lot in the weeks leading up to the US Open and also at the New York Slam itself. After losing in the fourth round to Emma Navarro, last year’s US Open champion knew it was time to make some changes.
She parted ways with her coach Brad Gilbert and appointed new coach, Matt Daly. The duo’s first tournament together was the 2024 China Open in Beijing and it was a wonderful debut.
Gauff bested Clara Burel and Katie Boulter in the first two rounds without any major issues. She was then helped by Naomi Osaka’s retirement and had to come back from a set down against Yuliia Starodubtseva and Paula Badosa.
Still, she did all of that and found herself in the final of the WTA 1000 tournament against Karolina Muchova. The Czech player had a great tournament herself, beating the top seed Aryna Sabalenka and also eliminating the home favorite Qinwen Zheng.
However, early in this match, she wasn’t able to keep up. Gauff had an incredible start to the match. She won all of the first 12 points on her serve, hitting four aces in the opening set and winning 94% of rallies after her first serve.
She was playing incredible tennis, especially on her serve, and on return, the American player managed to pressure her opponent as well. She had break points in two of her opponent’s three service games and used her chances on both occasions.
It was a crushing performance from Gauff, who won the opening set in just 30 minutes, 6-1. Prior to the final match, she joked that she was given luck ahead of the tournament when visiting Forbidden City together with Carlos Alcaraz, and after it seemingly worked for the Spaniard, as Alcaraz won the title in Beijing, it seemed to be working for Gauff as well.
“We both made the final. We both went to the Forbidden City together. Somebody asked me at the beginning of the week if that would give us luck. So far, it’s working. Hopefully, I can follow in Carlos’ footsteps.”
Still, the 20-year-old had a bad start into the second set. She found herself down 0-2 very quickly, as Muchova seemingly started an inspired comeback. The Czech player led 30-15 on her serve to confirm the break, but she couldn’t do that.
Gauff won 11 points in a row and suddenly, she found herself 3-2 up with a break. She confirmed that break, but couldn’t add another one in the seventh game when she had two break points.
That wouldn’t matter as Gauff was able to hold her serve and break Muchova’s once more in the ninth game to win the match 6-1, 6-3 in what was a crushing win for the American player and her second WTA 1000 title after her last year’s triumph in Cincinnati, where she also beat Muchova in the final.
