Gauff vs Zheng: Riyadh Final Analysis (WTA Finals)

Coco Gauff beat Qinwen Zheng at her own game - serve and forehand- to become the youngest WTA Finals champion in 20 years

A memorable 2024 WTA Tour season wrapped up with one last fascinating match, a 3-hour epic that required a deciding set tie-break to be settled.

In the end, Coco Gauff edged out Qinwen Zheng 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (7:2) after rallying from a set and a break down, as well as from a 3-5 deficit in the third set. With the win, the 20-year old American became the youngest WTA Finals champion in 20 years and extended her unbeaten run through her first career hardcourt finals to 8, an Open era record.

source: WTA Tour

The most impressive aspect of the Riyadh final was how Gauff, in addition to her multiple comebacks, beat Zheng at the Chinese’s own game.

Gauff outserved and, above all, largely outplayed Zheng from the forehand side.

Ironically, serve and forehand were shots that underperformed for Gauff throughout the season and hit a painful low point during the disappointing loss to Emma Navarro at the US Open.

Two months ago, who had the boldness to predict the last shot of the year would be a Gauff forehand winner? Yet, that’s exactly how the curtain fell on the season!

Following her New York heartbreak, instead of shutting down for the rest of the year as some suggested, Gauff put in the work and accomplished a quick and brilliant turnaround. Under new coach Matt Daly, she won 13 of 15 matches, clinched 2 titles and climbed back up to #3 in the WTA rankings. As Gauff put it:

source: Gauff’s twitter

With Gauff’s confidence fully restored for 2025, the upper echelon of women’s tennis continues to fill up with Major title contenders. The new season can’t start soon enough!

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Among the captivating storylines from the season-ending WTA Finals championship match, there was natural enthusiasm for the “top server vs great returner” narrative and curiosity to see if Gauff could also turn it into a clash of big servers, depending on how much she struggled with double faults.

Each scenario posed a specific test to Gauff. She ended up passing them with full marks.

1. Reduced number of double faults ✔️

   Gauff finished the final with 4 double faults, which meant her average during the knock-out stage at the WTA Finals was a respectable 1.2 double faults per set.

2. Put a lot of 1st serve returns back in play (Gauff was superb against Sabalenka in the semi-final) ✔️

   The American began returning just 54% of 1st serves faced in the first set. However, as the match progressed, she raised her 1st serve returns in play to 70% in the second set and an excellent 82% in the final set.

By ticking both boxes, Gauff laid the foundations to eventually get the better in a number of serve metrics.

• Aces: Gauff 6 / Zheng 4

• Unreturned serves: Gauff 29 / Zheng 25

• Unreturned serves %: Gauff 27% / Zheng 21%

• 1st serves in %: Gauff 64% / Zheng 61%

• 1st serves won %: Gauff 70% / Zheng 63%

• Serve points won %: Gauff 57% / Zheng 53%

Not only was Gauff able to lessen the influence Zheng’s potent serve usually has on matches, she even managed to outperform Zheng in a couple of metrics the Chinese led on Tour for 2024, namely aces and 1st serve points won.

There is no question that Gauff finished with the superior serving performance.

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If Gauff was successful in decreasing the impact of Zheng’s serve, she did a lot more to Zheng’s other big weapon - the forehand.

By the end, it was a liability that leaked 59 errors and massively contributed to Gauff crafting decisive advantages in all of the following forehand metrics:

1. Deuce rallies

2. Crosscourt forehands

3. Forehand returning

4. Overall forehand performance

1. Deuce rallies

Breakdown of points according to the pattern in play when the deciding shot was hit revealed that the match featured 25 Deuce rallies***.

Remarkably, Gauff won 18 of those 25 points (green box below)!

*** Deuce rally: a point with a deciding shot struck immediately after (at least) 2 consecutive crosscourt forehands.

Breakdown of points won according to the pattern in play when the deciding shot was hit