Six games nobody saw coming
Coco Gauff was already thinking about a third set. She said so herself. Down 5-1 in the second against Marta Kostyuk, serving to stay in it, she opened that game with a double fault. Then the match flipped.
The American won the last six games and closed out a 6-4, 7-5 win at the WTA Finals in Indian Wells on Thursday. It leaves her 2-1 in round-robin play, with a semifinal place still possible but no longer in her own hands.
It was not pretty for long stretches. Gauff trailed 3-0 early in the second set and called for a medical timeout, later working with a trainer on her lower back. She said it felt tight and hurt most when she served. She finished the match with nine double faults.
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Kostyuk’s forehand became the target
The turnaround came when Gauff started attacking the Kostyuk forehand. She held from 5-1, broke for 5-3, and ran off eight points in a row to get back to 5-5. Suddenly it was the Ukrainian serving to save the set. Gauff held for 6-5 and broke one more time to end it.
“I don’t even know how I came back from 5-1,” Gauff told Tennis Channel afterwards, laughing. Her head, she admitted, had already moved on to a decider.
Kostyuk only made the field as first alternate after world No 1 Elena Rybakina withdrew. She leaves the desert without a win.
Waiting on Pegula and Noskova
Gauff’s fate now sits with the group’s final match between Jessica Pegula and Linda Noskova. Noskova had already booked her semifinal spot by beating Gauff earlier in the week. If Noskova wins again, Gauff goes through. If Pegula wins, three players finish 2-1 and percentage of sets won decides it, which would favour Pegula and Noskova.
That is where the opening match comes back to haunt Gauff. She had a set point to beat Pegula in straight sets and let it go. Pegula forced a decider, and that lost set may be what sends the 2024 champion home.
Gauff joked she already has a fallback plan for the weekend in Los Angeles. “But I’m hoping not to be there,” she said.
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