2023 Big Titles Champions 🏆 AO: Sabalenka DU: Krejcikova IW: Rybakina MI: Kvitova MA: Sabalenka RO: Rybakina RG: Swiatek WI: Vondrousova MO: Pegula CI: Gauff or Muchova?
WTA Preview 2023 Cincinnati Open (Western & Southern Open) - Karolina Muchova v Coco Gauff
WTASunday, 20 August 2023 at 16:45
It is finals day at the Cincinnati Open (Western & Southern Open) with two players set to face off on the WTA side of the draw who will win their biggest career title with this triumph.
Those being Karolina Muchova and Coco Gauff who have both been stars this season already in their own right, the latter more recently. As ever TennisUpToDate will preview the final, with their route up to this point, head to head and other details as a new champion will be crowned in Cincinnati.
Route to the Final - Karolina Muchova
It has been a Czech resurgence as described earlier today with four players now in the top `12 more than any other country.
While Barbora Krejcikova and Petra Kvitova are part of that, it is two players in particular in recent times who have both had their injury trials and tribulations who are finally coming good.
Those being Marketa Vondrousova, the Wimbledon champion and her counterpart, Karolina Muchova. Both were outside the top 100 last year and now sit in the top 10, well in the case of Muchova as of Monday.
It has also shown Muchova not to be a flash in the pan. She reached the Roland Garros final, but like Vondrousova with Wimbledon, she took time off after. This massively prohibited her in the months that followed in particular at Wimbledon, she was beset by injury and went out early.
But she has bounced back superbly and despite not being a Grand Slam champion, she could seal a career best this Sunday in Cincinnati. She already has done ranking wise and could improve on that.
But how has the 26-year-old done it this week? The truth is the hard way compared to her opponent. She started off with victory over Beatriz Haddad Maia and followed that up by taking down Petra Martic and Maria Sakkari. The latter a familiar foe and one she has gained a fairly good record against.
But the key point perhaps was her win over Marie Bouzkova winning at 3-0 in the opening set as her opponent became the latest iteration of a player retiring after playing the double in Montreal. Next up as a result was Aryna Sabalenka who of course played more than three games in her Quarter-Final against Ons Jabeur, so the recovery was more in the favour of Muchova.
As well as recent scar tissue from losing to her stunningly at Roland Garros. Amalgamated together, it was a clinical display from Muchova and was a standout of a great week.
Route to the final - Coco Gauff
But what about her opponent. It has been a breakthrough week for Coco Gauff again who has been in utterly stunning form as of late.
A change in her coaching team to add Brad Gilbert and Pere Riba to the mix after a long-time in the coaching wilderness has bared fruit and that was no bigger than a first WTA 500 title in Washington last month.
This has continued and she will likely go into the US Open as one of the standout favourites with the backdrop of title wins and also her being in front of her home crowd. Something has clicked for her in recent months and it is no coincidence that it has come with the emergence of the former coach of legendary star, Andre Agassi.
Losing to Jessica Pegula in the Quarter-Finals in Montreal, she has been fortunate at times, with the merry go round of withdrawals. But as the old adage goes, you can only beat what's in front of you.
In this case Mayar Sherif, Linda Noskova and Jasmine Paolini respectively. But the big breakthrough came in her semi-final. On the eighth attempt and after being somewhat humiliated at times by Iga Swiatek, she finally solved the puzzle.
After 14 sets, she got over that hurdle then went onto win as it all clicked into place. That will stand out as a career defining win if she can go on to win this weekend.
Interestingly too, this is a head-to-head with no scar tissue as they have interestingly never played. In terms of career stats though, it would be only a second career title for Muchova and a fifth for Gauff. This makes for a final hard-to-predict and one which could go either way. It begins around 19:30 CET.
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