WTA Finals: Coco Gauff keeps title defence alive, ends Jasmine Paolini's hopes in Riyadh

Coco Gauff stays just about in contention at the 2025 WTA Finals with the American finding her way past Jasmine Paolini to keep her title hopes alive in Riyadh.

Gauff won through 6-3, 6-2 and it was an important win in particular as it was straight sets which can only help her late cause when it comes to wanting to qualify for the knockout stage. Albeit Sabalenka who faces Pegula is next up for Gauff in what could in theory be a straight shootout if Pegula beats Sabalenka later.

If Sabalenka wins, she sits on two wins and Gauff will have to hope for Pegula to lose against Paolini and go head-to-head with her on the standings in order to move through. So while it is not insurmountable, the early loss to Pegula could still come back to bite the World No.3.

While Paolini after such a late dash to even get into the tournament has ended with two losses to Sabalenka and Gauff, albeit given her doubles prowess it isn't like Keys who feasibly given she is also unwell could still withdraw from the tournament before her final match.

She is still involved in the doubles in which she has always been qualified and while it is very much an unfortunate end to the year for Paolini, she was in perhaps the tougher of the two groups with Sabalenka, Gauff and Pegula all of whom are usually consistent and their blips are few and far between.

Albeit in the tie between Gauff and Paolini, their blips were very much often in the first set. Between them there were 45 unforced errors in 40 minutes of tennis as Gauff raced into a 4-1 lead but it wasn't exactly easy. Both faced long games of arduous tennis and errors with multiple break points as Gauff faced a late storm of Paolini breaking to make it 4-3.

But as was the tentative nature of the tie, Gauff managed to break back to make it 5-3 after being 0-40 down at one point taking it to advantage. But then she rampantly shut the door to end the set.

Set two was better from both but more of a war of attrition as Gauff made it 3-2 breaking serve after being 40-30 down and she managed to make it 4-2 from there holding serve. But the nail in the coffin was hammered as Gauff broke again with Paolini running out of resolve and despite having break points next time around, the Italian fell and couldn't mount a comeback. Gauff moves into a vital game on Thursday.