Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula will meet in an all-American match in the round-robin stage of the 2024 WTA Finals in Riyadh.
The United States is the only country to have more than one player at the 2024 WTA Finals. There will be two players from the country competing in Riyadh, and if it wasn't for a special rule, there could have been three.
Emma Navarro was the eighth player in the 2024 WTA Race, which would have been enough for her to qualify in almost every previous season, but since there is a rule that allows a Grand Slam champion in the given season, ranked between 9th and 20th in the Race qualify, she didn't make it to Saudi Arabia.
Barbora Krejcikova won the 2024 Wimbledon Championships, and despite finishing the year as the World No. 12, she qualified for the WTA Finals, putting Navarro into the first alternate spot.
Gauff and Pegula, however, will hold the US flag high, even though the chances of both making the semi-finals decreased after they were both drawn in the same group.
Both come to Saudi Arabia in a very decent form. Pegula played the biggest match of her tennis career at Flushing Meadows recently, when she challenged Aryna Sabalenka for the US Open title.
She failed on that mission, losing the final in two sets, but she certainly didn't disappoint, fighting for every ball. After that, she reached the fourth round in Beijing and the third round in Wuhan.
Gauff, on the other hand, lost already in the fourth round at the US Open, but she then won the China Open and played in the Wuhan Open semi-finals.
The two have already met five times. Pegula won the first match, which happened at the 2022 Dubai Championships, and Gauff immediately responded with a win at the 2023 Eastbourne International.
Since then, however, the younger of the two players couldn't win again. Pegula triumphed at the 2023 Canadian Open in Montreal, a tournament that she went on to win, clinching the WTA 1000 title.
The 30-year-old also bested Gauff at last year's WTA Finals, and quite convincingly, winning 6-2, 6-1. his year, Pegula was the better player at the Berlin Open, winning the match 7-5, 7-6(2).
| Coco Gauff | Jessica Pegula | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | H2H | 4 |
| 2 | Rank | 6 |
| 20 | Age | 30 |
| 48-15 | 2024 W/L | 38-13 |
| 223-97 | Career W/L | 433-245 |
Although Pegula is the player who stood in a Grand Slam final more recently, Gauff is coming into this match in better form and, more importantly, with a new wind in her sails.
With a new coach, Matt Dally, the 20-year-old started playing confident tennis again, and that showed in China. The fast court might play into some of her strengths, even though Pegula is a player who doesn't mind any conditions.
Pegula might have an advantage due to the dominant H2H record, but Gauff has been impressive recently, and it wouldn't be a surprise if she kept it going at the WTA Finals.
Prediction: Coco Gauff to win in three sets.