Coco Gauff’s WTA Finals defence started in a difficult fashion as she fell to Jessica Pegula in three sets in Saudi Arabia.
Gauff’s serving woes continued at the WTA Finals as she hit 17 double faults against her compatriot and gave herself a mountain to climb at the tournament.
The American looked perplexed as she struggled with her ball toss throughout the match, and Gauff now has added pressure in her remaining matches against Jasmine Paolini and Aryna Sabalenka.
While Gauff’s continued issues with her serve dominate the headlines, there was another worrying flaw that loomed over the star’s game like a dark cloud.
Coco Gauff’s worrying forehand issues at the WTA Finals
As well as hitting a worrying number of double faults against Pegula, Gauff’s unforced error count was exceptionally high.
The Roland Garros champion hit 45 unforced errors on her forehand in her opening round match, which ended in her losing almost triple the points she lost on her serve.
It’s a testament to the 21-year-old’s ability elsewhere on the court that she was able to make a game of it against Pegula.
She recovered from losing the first set by winning a tie-break, but eventually her errors across the game caught up with her.
Pegula overcame her own issues on serve to race to the finish line with a 6-2 victory in the deciding set to cement herself behind Sabalenka in second place in the Steffi Graf group.
Despite Gauff’s opening round loss, she is still in a solid position to qualify from her group and defend her title.
Gauff lost a group stage match in the 2024 WTA Finals before beating Sabalenka and Zheng Qinwen in the knockouts to lift the trophy for the first time.
Coco Gauff was her own worst enemy at the WTA Finals
Gauff lost 17 outright points from her serve, but that wasn’t what let her down against Pegula in Saudi Arabia.
The star’s 45 forehand unforced errors were backed up by a further 13 on her backhand, which is usually one of the strongest aspects of her game.
Gauff only lost 112 points in the entire match, meaning over 50% of the American’s points were lost due to her own errors.
In contrast, Pegula only hit 32 unforced errors across her forehand and backhand, which is undoubtedly the reason she came out with the win.
Gauff managed to make the match competitive, but she desperately needs to address these issues if she wants to succeed at the WTA Finals.
