Coco Gauff will play her maiden final at the WTA Finals after shocking reigning World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka in the semi-finals of the tournament.
Both of these players dominated their groups in the round-robin stage so much that they didn't even have to win their last match to advance to the semi-finals of the 2024 WTA Finals.
Sabalenka lost her last match to Elena Rybakina and after the loss, the Belarusian player admitted that she struggled to motivate herself for the match that didn't influence the outcome of anything.
Gauff also lost her last round-robin match, but in her case, Barbora Krejcikova had motivation to win, as the Czech player secured a semi-final spot by winning the match, unlike Rybakina, who couldn't advance regardless of her result against Sabalenka.
Those results set up this semi-final meeting, which was a rematch of last year's US Open final. Then, Gauff won to claim her maiden Grand Slam title, and a win in this match would send one of these players one match away from a maiden WTA Finals title.
Sabalenka played in the final before, while the 20-year-old American reached the semi-finals this year, and the motivation was certainly not a problem in this match for either of the players.
Although both are great servers, neither could avoid facing break points early in the match. Gauff had first break chances, and she had two, already in the second game of the match. Unfortunately for her, those remained unused.
In the following game, Sabalenka worked her way to her first two break points, but the Belarusian could convert and led 2-1 after three games of play. But not for a long time.
Gauff immediately broke back, making it 3-2, but she once again couldn't use two more break points to lead 4-2. It almost came back to haunt her, as she was broken in the eleventh game of the set, falling behind 5-6.
Despite being only two points away from losing the first set, she broke back and forced a tie-break. The tie-break was far from optimal from Sabalenka, as Gauff was able to win it 7-4.
The Belarusian player couldn't forget losing the first set so easily, and she started struggling on her serve in the second set. After five games of play, she was already down 1-4, as she was broken in two of her three service games.
From that point, neither player was able to hold their serve, but since Gauff had a break advantage, she was able to run away with a win, winning this match 7-6(4), 6-3 to secure the final spot at the 2024 WTA Finals.
She became the youngest player to defeat the World No. 1 and No. 2 players at the WTA Finals since Kim Clijsters did it at the 2002 edition of the event, beating both Serena and Venus Williams, and obviously, she was happy about the win, which set up the final meeting with Qinwen Zheng.
"I’m happy with how I played. I know going against Aryna it’s always going to be tough. I just tried to stay in it. She’s World No. 1 for a reason. I’m just happy with how I played today."