Coco Gauff and, especially, Jessica Pegula have been denied a chance to become the highest-ranked doubles players on the WTA Tour at the 2023 Roland Garros.
After an early loss of the top-seeded team at the 2023 Roland Garros, Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova, the American duo had a chance to do something they were far from for quite some time.
Last year in August, Gauff reached the world no. 1 spot in doubles, with her doubles partner Pegula, being logically right behind her. There were a few events that the two didn't play together and thanks to that, the teenager had more points at the time.
However, the tables turned and currently, Pegula leads Gauff by 90 points. That meant that if the duo won the 2023 Roland Garros, the 29-year-old would reach her new career-high and for the first time become the doubles world no. 1.
But fellow American Taylor Townsend and Leylah Fernandez from Canada had different plans. The tenth-seeded team lost to Gauff and Pegula at the 2023 Miami Open and they wanted to get their sweet revenge on the Parisian clay.
And well, in the first set it looked like they didn't just come to play tennis, but really for a revenge. Townsend and Fernandez were better in crucial moments, and those were decisive in the first set.
More than decisive. The American-Canadian duo won the first set 6-0, crushing the second-seeded pair. Gauff and Pegula needed to come up with something new, and they kind of managed to do that in the second set.
Kind of for a reason. Much better on serve, the Americans also created four break point opportunities, but that's where the kind of part comes, they couldn't convert any of their chances.
On the other hand, when Townsend and Fernandez got their first break points of the set in the tenth game, they didn't miss, winning the match 6-0, 6-4 and booking their spot in the 2023 Roland Garros final.
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