After Coco Gauff's last singles final of the French Open, in 2022, she covered her head with a towel and dissolved into uncontrolled sobbing in her chair. This time, while she fought off tears, it was her opponent who took the defeat so hard she apologized to her team "for this terrible final." Gauff battled back to beat world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka 6-7 (5-7) 6-2 6-4, the BBC reports, on Saturday in a tense and windy match. Afterward, Gauff explained her rebound with rap lyrics. "Honestly, I didn't think I could do it," the 21-year-old American told the crowd, "but I'm going to quote Tyler the Creator right here and he said 'If I ever told you I had a doubt inside me, I must be lying.'"
It was the first Paris final since 2013 to feature the two top-ranked women in the world. It did not feature their best play, which Sabalenka, 27, of Belarus, pointed out, per the New York Times, after she made 70 unforced errors on the clay court at Roland-Garros. "In these terrible conditions, showing such terrible tennis in the final, this really hurts," she said. "Anyway, Coco congrats, in these tough conditions you were a better player than me."
The title is Gauff's second second Grand Slam championship; she defeated Sabalenka in the US Open final in 2023. It required raising the level of her play in third set, per the AP. In the third game, Gauff prevailed in a rally that brought loud cheers from the fans: The two traded drop shots until Gauff hit a lob that Sabalenka ran down and returned with a shot between her legs—which Gauff caught up to at the net for a winner. Before long, she was falling to the court, sobbing as she patted the clay while her parents, Candi and Corey, danced in the stands. (More French Open stories.)
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