Aryna Sabalenka believes she is ready for the challenge of facing her rival Coco Gauff in the Miami Open final as she stands one win away from winning Indian Wells and Miami in the same year for the first time in her career.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s a fighter,\u201d Sabalenka said of Gauff. \u201cShe\u2019s a great player, of course. We played a lot of matches, a lot of tight matches, a lot of big finals. And, yeah, she\u2019s a great player and I\u2019m really excited to face her in the final. I think it\u2019s going to be a great battle and I cannot wait to play that match.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rivalry between Sabalenka and Elena Rybakina, the top two players on the WTA rankings, has defined the 2026 season so far, with the two players producing a pair of spectacular battles in the finals of the Australian Open and Indian Wells. Their semi-final in Miami on Thursday, however, quickly turned into a rout as Sabalenka snatched a second win over Rybakina this month with an imperious performance, dominating the Kazakhstani 6-4, 6-3.<\/p>\n
Earlier in the day, Gauff continued to build momentum in her home tournament as she improved her perfect record against Karolina Muchova to 6-0 with a dominant 6-1, 6-1 win over the in-form Czech.<\/p>\n
Coco Gauff impressed during her 6-1, 6-1 victory against Karolina Muchova in the semi finals of the Miami Open. Photograph: Larry Marano\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n
Gauff and Sabalenka first played each other six years ago in 2020 and their head-to-head is even at 6-6. However, Gauff has defeated Sabalenka in their two grand slam finals, winning her first slam at the 2023 US Open over Sabalenka and her second last year at the French Open. On both occasions, Gauff frustrated an incredibly nervous Sabalenka with her peerless defensive skills and grit, winning both matches in three dramatic sets.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the rhythm is always different and [she forces] unforced errors because she\u2019s always like \u2026 with Coco, you know that you have to play an extra ball and the ball always comes back. Sometimes not perfect, but it\u2019s always back on your side,\u201d said Sabalenka. \u201cYou have to be aggressive, you have to go for your shots and, yeah, she pushes you into the long rallies and I think that\u2019s what makes her difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n
After Gauff\u2019s win over the world No 1 in Paris, a devastated Sabalenka uttered numerous unsportsmanlike remarks after the match. She later apologised to Gauff, with the pair reconciling for a TikTok dance video together a few weeks later ahead of Wimbledon.<\/p>\n
Muchova knows the challenge of facing Gauff well. The Czech had arrived in the match with a clear edge in form over Gauff. The 13th seed won her first WTA 1000 title in Doha last month and she has played some of the best tennis of her career at the start of the 2026 season. However, her contests with Gauff are proof of how difficult it can be to overcome an unfavourable match-up.<\/p>\n
Karolina Muchova entered the match with a 0-5 record against Coco Gauff, and she could not change that run. Photograph: Larry Marano\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n
On the ATP tour, some American players describe a player with a dominant head-to-head record as being the other player\u2019s \u201cdaddy\u201d. Although Gauff is very familiar with the term, she said they do not have similar phrases on the WTA tour. \u201cWe don\u2019t have anything like that,\u201d she said, laughing. \u201cI don\u2019t know. I feel like a lot of American guys, they\u2019re a little bit on the \u2018uppier\u2019 [sic] side, so they\u2019re able to say this. But for me, I don\u2019t think of it like that. But I\u2019ve also been on the other end of it, too, so I don\u2019t want to \u2026 I mean, Iga beat me so many times in a row. So I don\u2019t want her to be considered my dad. But I was able to reverse it, so now we\u2019re both each other\u2019s daddies? I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked whether she would want a phrase for such dominant match-ups in women\u2019s tennis, Gauff burst out laughing: \u201cI don\u2019t think daddy\u2019s the term. I don\u2019t think mommy\u2019s the term either. I don\u2019t know. Dominatrix? I don\u2019t know. But I don\u2019t want a term because I know I have some matches where I\u2019m on the losing end of that too. So I\u2019m just going to say it was a good day, I\u2019m lucky. I always say against her I don\u2019t know why the matchup is like this. I\u2019m going to take it, but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s going to last for ever.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aryna Sabalenka believes she is ready for the challenge of facing her rival Coco Gauff in the Miami…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":564024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-564023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564023","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=564023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}