{"id":267870,"date":"2025-11-07T13:56:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T13:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/267870\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T13:56:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T13:56:10","slug":"coco-gauffs-defeat-to-aryna-sabalenka-and-the-impact-of-wta-tour-finals-round-robin-math","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/267870\/","title":{"rendered":"Coco Gauff\u2019s defeat to Aryna Sabalenka and the impact of WTA Tour Finals round-robin math"},"content":{"rendered":"

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia \u2014 A WTA Tour Finals showdown between Coco Gauff and Aryna Sabalenka<\/a> with a spot in the semifinals on the line seemed like a pretty tasty offering.<\/p>\n

They hadn\u2019t played since the French Open final, when Gauff came back from a set down to scramble Sabalenka\u2019s brain<\/a> \u2013 with some help from a swirling wind \u2013 and walked off with her second Grand Slam title. Then, in one of the lower moments of her career, Sabalenka unloaded \u2014 first in her loser\u2019s speech and then in her post-match news conference<\/a>, saying the only reason that Gauff won was because Sabalenka had played terribly in horrid conditions.<\/p>\n

Thursday night\u2019s rematch held the promise of revenge going both ways. Until round-robin math intruded, flattening what could have been another classic and sending Sabalenka onto the semi-finals with a 7-6(5), 6-2 win over the world No. 3 and defending champion.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love getting revenge,\u201d Sabalenka said in a mixed zone after the match.<\/p>\n

For 10 months, no one in tennis cares about how many games a player needs to win a match. They can win 18 of of 32 games and still lose.<\/p>\n

Then the Tour Finals roll around, and suddenly the difference between advancing and going home can come down to a percentage of games won over three matches. It\u2019s the sort of calculation that is reasonably impossible to keep in the brain while trying to beat one of the other seven best players in the sport.<\/p>\n

If Gauff had won on Thursday, she, Sabalenka and Jessica Pegula all would have finished the round-robin with a 2-1 record. The first tiebreak in that scenario is head-to-head record, then sets won, then game percentage won.<\/p>\n

The way it worked out, Gauff essentially had to beat Sabalenka in straight sets to advance. She could do it in three, but it would require a faintly absurd scoreline \u2014 a close set going Sabalenka\u2019s way, either before or in between two beatdowns from the American.<\/p>\n

Gauff started the mission firing. The usual shakiness with her first serve was gone. She tagged forehand after forehand with a brutal efficiency, as she so often does against Sabalenka and world No. 2 Iga \u015awi\u0105tek, embracing the freedom of being the relative underdog in a matchup.<\/p>\n

She broke Sabalenka in the first game, then again in the fifth. Leading 4-2, she got three more break points by out-slugging the biggest slugger in the sport. But then Sabalenka\u2019s serve caught fire and lifted her out of trouble, before she broke Gauff with the American having been two points from winning the first set.<\/p>\n

Two games later, Gauff was 4-2 up in a first-set tiebreak with a short backhand for a 5-2 lead. She stuffed it into the net. Then came a double fault at the worst moment to give Sabalenka set point, which she took with a forehand winner. Gauff now needed two one-sided sets, which isn\u2019t how a player usually thinks about winning a three-setter. In any other competition, the 21-year-old would slough off the disappointment and dig in for a marathon. Instead, the scenario required a sprint from a standing start.<\/p>\n

She was down 0-4 in about 12 minutes, and managed just two more games in her final match of a long season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a lot of chances in the first set, so, it was a bit disappointing not to get that one,\u201d Gauff said in a mixed zone. \u201cA couple of points in the tiebreak I had literally on my racket, so yeah, it was a tough one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sabalenka\u2019s win sets up another opportunity for revenge, this time for her opponent, Amanda Anisimova. Pegula will take on Elena Rybakina, the in-form player at the event who has won nine completed matches in a row and has been whipping balls at the lines and into the corners with abandon.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all know how she can play, huge game, big serve, I think these conditions definitely suit her,\u201d Pegula said in a mixed zone of Rybakina. \u201cIt seems like she\u2019s hitting every single mark.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sabalenka and Anisimova have played two massive matches this year, with Anisimova getting the better of Sabalenka in the Wimbledon semi-final and Sabalenka getting her revenge in the U.S. Open final. They\u2019ve been trading wins since the start of 2024.<\/p>\n

That would suggest it\u2019s Anisimova\u2019s turn, but that\u2019s not exactly how this rivalry works these days. It\u2019s usually a couple of points either way.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of great matches, a lot of great battles, and I\u2019m super happy to see her healthy, competing, playing her best tennis,\u201d Sabalenka said of Anisimova. \u201cI\u2019m really excited to be facing her.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RIYADH, Saudi Arabia \u2014 A WTA Tour Finals showdown between Coco Gauff and Aryna Sabalenka with a spot…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267871,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":{"0":"post-267870","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267870\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}