Coco Gauff got past the disappointment of losing the Madrid Open final to Aryna Sabalenka and was celebrating a solid week that will make her the top-ranked American woman on Monday.
\nThe 21-year-old Gauff is set to reach No. 3 in the world, moving past countrywoman Jessica Pegula.
\n“Overall there’s a lot of positives to take,” The Associated Press quoted Gauff as saying. \u201cObviously disappointed with maybe how I played (in the final). I feel like I could have showed up better. But I went from an 0-6 set in the first round and made it to the final, so happy with that. Obviously hoping for more next time.”
\nGauff lost in straight sets \u2014 6-3, 7-6 (3) \u2014 to the top-ranked Sabalenka on Saturday. She had started her campaign by rallying to a 0-6, 6-2, 7-5 victory over Dayana Yastremska, then picked up straight-set wins over Ann Li, Belinda Bencic, Mirra Andreeva and second-ranked Iga Swiatek in the semifinals. Gauff overpowered Swiatek in a commanding 6-1, 6-1 victory.
\n“Speaking on the week as a whole, on the ground I think today was like the only day where I felt really tested, and obviously in my first round, too,” Gauff said after the final. “So there\u2019s a lot of positives to take, and I think especially coming maybe from the last few weeks where I didn\u2019t feel as confident on the ground, I think it is a step in the right direction, and just trying to look at the positives of it all. I don\u2019t like losing, first final loss since the French Open, so it\u2019s a feeling that I know I don\u2019t like.”
\nIt was only the second loss in a WTA tour final for Gauff, with the other coming against Swiatek at the 2022 French Open.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Coco Gauff got past the disappointment of losing the Madrid Open final to Aryna Sabalenka and was celebrating a solid week that will make her the top-ranked American woman on Monday. The 21-year-old Gauff is set to reach No. 3 in the world, moving past countrywoman Jessica Pegula. “Overall there’s a lot of positives to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47881,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47890"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47891,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47890\/revisions\/47891"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}