Coco Gauff showed incredible resilience to beat Paula Badosa in three sets at the 2024 China Open despite being on the brink of defeat.
It's been a fantastic second part of the season for Badosa, who spent much of the early part of the year battling a back injury and uncertainty. Just a few months ago, she was very unsure about her future, even thinking about quitting the sport at times.
Thankfully, she persisted, and it has been paying off in a major way. It all turned at the Citi Open in Washington, where she played some amazing tennis to make the final and win the trophy.
She then followed that up with her best-ever US Open performance, and she has maintained that level for the China Open as well. In the semi-final, she faced Gauff, a player who has had the opposite experience so far this year.
The American's level has been very inconsistent in recent weeks, but mostly trending downwards. The US Open didn't go well for her, and even in Beijing, the American hasn't really played her best tennis.
She kept winning matches, showing just how good she is even when struggling, but that level wouldn’t be enough against the Spaniard. She was the nominal underdog due to that difference in form, and the match went that way until the 20-year-old completely flipped the script.
Gauff didn’t serve well early on, which has been a theme for a while, and that allowed Badosa plenty of chances to go at her weaker second serve.
Badosa is a tremendous hitter, and she was able to relentlessly punish her opponent's second serve, as the 2023 US Open winner won barely any points on her second serve.
On her own serve, Badosa did well enough to create just enough pressure on Gauff to get away without losing too many of her service games.
One of the signatures of Gauff’s play is her ability to break serve, as she generally breaks even the best in the world. She created plenty of chances in this match as well but was pretty horrendous at converting them in the first set.
By the time she was down a set and a break in the second set, Gauff had managed to waste 10 of the 11 break chances she had. In contrast, Badosa used three of the five break chances she had up until that point, as she was leading 6-4 and 4-2.
The serve remained the major issue for Gauff as she committed plenty of double faults, reaching 10 by the end of the second set. She has been working on her serve lately, which likely contributes to that.
Although Gauff tried to come back into the match, she wasn’t able to do it initially. However, when Badosa was up 4-3 in the second set and served, she lost her serve to make it 4-4.
Gauff then held for 5-4 and broke once more to win the second set 6-4. She then even took a 2-0 lead in the final set but then threw away the one-break lead with a horrible service game.
However, she then broke once more for the 3-1 lead and held to lead 4-1. What worked so well for Gauff late in the match was, surprisingly, her serve. She served well and it made all the difference but Badosa's level also dropped off a cliff. The final score ended up being 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 for Gauff, who booked a spot in the 2024 China Open final.