{"id":644357,"date":"2026-05-15T08:46:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T08:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/644357\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T08:46:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T08:46:12","slug":"coco-gauff-does-the-impossible-breaks-wta-record-after-epic-italian-open-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/644357\/","title":{"rendered":"Coco Gauff does the impossible \u2014 Breaks WTA record after epic Italian Open victory"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Gauff sets new WTA record after reaching Italian Open final<\/p>\n<p>Coco Gauff has reached the final of the Italian Open for a second straight year.<\/p>\n<p>The American, who lost to Jasmine Paolini in last season\u2019s championship match, beat 26th seed Sorana Cirstea in the semifinals to advance.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Gauff won in straight sets, 6-4, 6-3, over Cirstea, who had previously knocked world number one Aryna Sabalenka out of the competition.<\/p>\n<p>This is now Gauff\u2019s second final appearance of 2024. She came up short at the Miami Open earlier this season and will be hoping for a different outcome this time around.<\/p>\n<p>Along her path to the final in Rome, Gauff just set a new WTA record with her victory over Cirstea.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Photo by Emmanuele Ciancaglini\/Ciancaphoto Studio\/Getty Images\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"standard-img\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/94be39913e94c6ff8e42ed0d314b963c.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Photo by Emmanuele Ciancaglini\/Ciancaphoto Studio\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Coco Gauff moves past Iga Swiatek in WTA clay record<\/p>\n<p>Gauff\u2019s win over Cirstea was her 34th at a clay-court WTA 1000 event, according to Opta Ace, and she\u2019s now the new record holder for the most such victories before turning 23.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>The previous record belonged to Iga Swiatek, who had 33 wins by that age. Gauff still has just under a year left before her next birthday and could push the mark even higher.<\/p>\n<p>Not far behind is Mirra Andreeva, who only recently turned 19 and already sits third on the all-time list with 21 wins.<\/p>\n<p>Rounding out the top five are Victoria Azarenka and Caroline Wozniacki, with 18 and 16 wins respectively.<\/p>\n<p>How Gauff\u2019s Italian Open title defence has unfolded so far<\/p>\n<p>Gauff kicked off her title defence at the 2026 Italian Open with a routine win over Tereza Valentova, but the road quickly became tougher from there.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>The American then found herself having to rally from a set down in three straight matches, starting with Solana Sierra.<\/p>\n<p>She also dropped the opening sets against Iva Jovic and Mirra Andreeva in the following rounds, but managed to turn both of those matches around as well.<\/p>\n<p>Now through to another final, Gauff will face either Swiatek or Elina Svitolina for a chance to defend her title in Rome. A win would give her first trophy since lifting the Wuhan Open last season.<\/p>\n<p>Read more:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gauff sets new WTA record after reaching Italian Open final Coco Gauff has reached the final of the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644358,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[33948,49157,2660,63067,51732,9747,278141,16892,99,428,91505,654],"class_list":["post-644357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-caroline-wozniacki","tag-gauff","tag-iga-swiatek","tag-italian-open","tag-jasmine-paolini","tag-mirra-andreeva","tag-record-holder","tag-sorana-cirstea","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-victoria-azarenka","tag-wta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}