WUHAN, China – Coco Gauff overcame seven double faults to beat Jasmine Paolini and will meet compatriot Jessica Pegula in the Wuhan Open final after the 31-year-old American ended top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka’s winning streak at the tournament.
Gauff defeated Paolini 6-4, 6-3 on Saturday after winning the battle of converted breaks 7-5 as both top 10 players struggled with their serves.
Pegula won a nail-biter 2-6, 6-4, 7-6 (2) to set up the all-American final and end Sabalenka’s 20-match winning streak in Wuhan. Pegula has a 4-2 advantage over Gauff in head-to-head matches, although this is the first time they have met in a final.
Third-ranked Gauff fought back from three breaks in the second set, including a run of five consecutive double faults, and won the last four games to advance to the final.
“I did what I had to do to get through it,” Gauff said.
The 21-year-old Gauff, who changed serving coaches in August, leads the women’s circuit this season with 378 double faults, more than 120 more than the next player.
But she also excelled in another statistic: Her 13 career victories over top-10 players at WTA 1000 events are the most of any player before she turned 22 since 2009, the circuit said.
The fifth-ranked Paolini had knocked out Wimbledon champion Iga Swiatek in the quarter-finals, winning her previous three matches against Gauff, all played this season.
Sixth-seeded Pegula trailed 5-2 in the final set before winning four games in a row. Sabalenka then saved two match points in the next game to force the tiebreak.
Sabalenka won the Wuhan Open in 2018 and 2019 and again in 2024 after the event returned to the circuit.
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