One looping forehand diving out of the sky. One slice skidding to the side of the court. One backhand cracked down the line. Absorb all that, and then do it again, and again, and again.
After using world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka’s pace against her during a stunning semifinal win Saturday, Jessica Pegula fell to a junk-ball masterclass from a tactically inspired Coco Gauff in the Wuhan Open final. Gauff triumphed 6-4, 7-5 for her second title of 2025, and her first WTA 1000 title of the year.
By the middle of the second set, Gauff had reduced Pegula to shouting that her ball “wasn’t going anywhere.” After most of the tournament had been played in extreme heat and humidity, cooler conditions arrived in Wuhan for the semifinals and finals, and that slowdown — coupled with Gauff’s reduced ball speed compared to that of Sabalenka — left Pegula only occasionally able to hit through her opponent.
Pegula knew this was coming. After she beat Sabalenka, she spoke of how the conditions made holding serve more difficult. There were seven breaks in the second set, with Pegula taking a 3-0 lead on the back of a slew of Gauff double faults. But Gauff started more aggressively disrupting Pegula’s rhythm with her combination of heavy topspin and skidding slice, as well as acceleration and deceleration of the ball from groundstroke to groundstroke.
Pegula’s ruthlessly metronomic baseline game started to wobble, and in the runs of games leading up to new balls, she repeatedly struck her strings in frustration with how she could not get the ball through the court. Gauff came back to 3-3, the balls were changed, and Pegula immediately broke back, before holding for 5-3. Then the Gauff spin cycle resumed, and this time she won four games in a row to take the set and the match. Pegula became tentative especially when coming forward, not hitting approach shots close enough to the lines.
One absurd get from Gauff in the final game saw her scramble all the way across the court to retrieve a brilliant backhand volley from Pegula, which scrambled Pegula’s brain enough to make her push the next volley wide when a firm strike back behind Gauff would have done.
The players took contrasting routes to the final. Gauff dropped just 16 games to get there and 25 all tournament, the fewest of a champion since the event’s first edition in 2014. Pegula played and won four three-set matches, having played four more at the China Open the week before. Gauff labeled Pegula as “three-set queen” in her speech during the trophy ceremony, joking that she did not want to let her get to a decider.
Gauff and Pegula will look ahead to the WTA Tour Finals in Riyadh, which begins Nov. 1. Gauff is defending champion, while Pegula had to withdraw from last year’s round-robin after two matches due to injury.
