Gauff’s late-season improvements pay dividends in Riyadh

It’s a little astounding to think Coco Gauff is still a work in progress, despite already achieving so much in her relatively short career.

The 20-year-old American has now won a Grand Slam, two WTA 1000 titles and now the year-end championships, capturing the title at the WTA Finals Riyadh presented by PIF on Saturday.

Gauff is now among only a handful of players to claim tournament victory at each of those three levels before turning 21, since the WTA’s introduction of the Tier format in 1990.

Saturday’s Riyadh final between two extremely gifted young players who have hit form while still trying to work out the intricacies of their respective games made for an appropriate encounter.

Both Gauff and Zheng Qinwen have showed remarkable rates of improvement over the past few months, but for the former, the deficiencies arguably came under much bigger scrutiny, and this week’s triumph has been a testament to her poise.

Finishing 2024 with a win-loss record of 54-17 at WTA level, including the Olympics and team events, this is Gauff’s career-high for WTA match-wins in a calendar year.

It both reflects Gauff’s age and potential, that this year’s win at the WTA Finals can be seen as a platform for coming seasons, in trying to cultivate a more complete game.

But in order to do that, and go through the numbers, we first have to understand it. Ultimately, the primary nature of Gauff’s game is attritional, extracting the absolute maximum from her exceptional court coverage.

One statistic is particularly illuminating — coming into Saturday’s final, Gauff was the only Riyadh qualifier to have played over 1000 rallies with 10 or more shots in WTA matches this year (1,211 in total).

Among the eight qualifiers for the year-end event, Gauff’s total of points with 10 or more shots was well ahead of the next most, Jasmine Paolini (766).

As ever, you have to adequately weigh up volume with efficiency, and Gauff stood up in this respect. Among the players with 200 or more such points this year, the average percentage of points won was 46.2%.

While Iga Swiatek led in this sample at an almost absurd 55.1%, Gauff was still winning those points at an above average rate, claiming 47.2% of points with 10 or more shots.

Zooming out, when the primary intent is ultimately to outlast the opponent, minimizing errors becomes a critical element in that kind of game – which is arguably what has placed Gauff’s forehand under such scrutiny, yet also allowed her to ultimately win the WTA Finals.

Among players with 10 or more matches on the WTA Tour in 2024, excluding Grand Slam and team events, Gauff (714) hit fewer unforced errors on the forehand side than only Diana Shnaider (752).

Meanwhile, among the qualifiers for Riyadh this year, Gauff (22.5%) held the highest percentage of points lost via unforced errors on the forehand side.

But in the context of her late-season form, the splits before and since Beijing have been telling from a standpoint of marginal gains on that side of the court, following technical adjustment of Gauff’s oft-cited extreme grip.

Up to Beijing this year, Gauff’s percentage of points lost via unforced errors on the forehand side was sitting at 23.0% — since Beijing, it dropped to 21.3%.

Meanwhile, Gauff also managed an uptick in winners per match before and since Beijing this year, with splits of 19.3 and 20.9 winners per match over the respective periods.

Gauff’s serve has still fluctuated, but despite marginally more double faults per match (going from an average of 6.5 to 6.6 since Beijing), she has also averaged more aces since Beijing, with 4.1 in comparison to the 3.8 coming into this year’s Asian swing.

In Saturday’s final against Zheng, Gauff managed her highest total of winners in a single match at this year’s WTA Finals, with 21 en route to victory — essentially saving her best for last despite the highly pressurized setting.

Gauff’s focus and resiliency in those pressurized moments belie her relatively young age, reflected in her now 8-0 record in WTA finals on hard court — becoming the only player in the Open Era to win their first eight WTA finals on the surface.

Going forward, those kinds of marginal gains will likely prove definitive in Gauff’s career trajectory — one that’s already historic.