Coco Gauff's WTA Finals Title Ends Her Season With $4.8 Million Check, Big Turnaround

Coco Gauff pays attention to what people say about her online and occasionally takes pleasure in clapping back, so it should t be a surprise that she took to social media to out a mess after wrapping up 2024 by winning WTA Finals and USD 4.8 million check that came with it.

“Lol! Safe to say I beat b season allegations,” Gauff wrote. After defeating women ranked s. 1 and 2 — Aryna Sabalenka and Iga Swiatek — earlier in Riyh, Saudi Arabia, Gauff got past Olympic gold medalist Zheng Qinwen 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (2) on Saturday in title match. That allowed . 3 Gauff to close her year with a 54-17 record and three trophies.

“re's been a lot of ups and downs. At moments, it felt great. At or moments, it felt awful. Basically, a typical year on tour,” 20-year-old Floridian said in a telephone interview with Associated Press.

“ worst? Definitely, my US Open loss. I felt that was just a hard loss for me, because I double-faulted so many times,” Gauff said with a self-deprecating chuckle. 

“It felt like I was close but just didn't give myself best chance.” How did she put aside that 19-double-fault, fourth-round loss to Emma Navarro in September as defending champion at Flushing Meows? That's an important question, because as disappointing as setback was — where it happened, how it happened — that marked a pivotal moment.

From re, Gauff split from coach Br Gilbert and hired Matt Daly to work alongside Jean-Christophe “JC” Faurel on her team. And from re, Gauff went 13-2 at her last three tournaments, including two titles and a semifinal run.

“ key is when you reach a low, only way you can go is up,” Gauff explained. “So at that point, I just said, Well, I have to get better at some things, and just try to do that.' 

"Being a tennis player, you can't miss a bunch of tournaments just to practice — I mean, you can, but I didn't want to do that; I didn't want to take that route — so I just decided to be willing to accept losses and wins while working on things.” So far, so good. A significant improvement: Gauff averd 4.6 double-faults across her five matches at WTA Finals, certainly much better than at US Open.

In Saturday's final, Gauff produced more aces (five) than double-faults (four) and turned in a higher first-serve percent (64 to 62) and a higher winning percent on first-serve points (70 to 62) than Zheng, one of tour's top servers. re was t a thing that was easy about this triumph.

Gauff's run included victories over Sabalenka (in semi-finals) and Swiatek (in round-robin play), making American youngest player to win against top two women at one tournament since Maria Sharapova at 2006 US Open.

“She's a fighter,” Sabalenka said about Gauff. final was a serious test of wills — first WTA Finals championship match settled by a third-set tiebreaker, and, at 3 hours, 4 minutes, more than a half-hour longer than any title match at event since record-keeping began in 2008.

“When you play this of match," Zheng said, "it's t about tennis, it's just about choices on court.” At this still-early st in her career, Gauff seems to be making good choices on and off court. Her response to, and rebound from, what happened in New York illustrates that.

As does becoming youngest champ at WTA Finals — which is for top eight women in game — since Sharapova was a teenr in 2004.

“Playing best of best,” Gauff said, “makes me feel confident in my game.”