More than three hours of a breathtaking finale. The WTA Masters, the end-of-year tournament which brings together the eight best tennis players of the season, concluded on Saturday, November 9, in Riyadh with the coronation of the American Coco Gauff.
The 3e world player defeated the Chinese Zheng Qinwen (7e) in three sets: 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (7/2). A success which crowns a week which saw her beat the two women ahead of her in the rankings: the Polish Iga Swiatek (2e), during the group stage, and Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka, in the semi-finals.
At 20 years old, the winner of the 2023 US Open becomes the youngest winner of the WTA Masters since the Russian Maria Sharapova in 2004. A nice revenge for the standard bearer of the American delegation to the Olympic Games, who had experienced disillusionment at Paris by being eliminated in the second round in singles.
Since Li Na in 2013, no Chinese woman has reached the WTA Masters final. But Zheng Qinwen failed to become the first Asian player to triumph in this tournament created in 1972.
The competition was held for the first time in Saudi Arabia, a choice on which Coco Gauff admitted having had problems. “reserves”, due to the human rights violations accused of the conservative kingdom.
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