Coco Gauff gets top marks after the 15-year-old lands her first WTA Tour title at the Linz Open
- Coco Gauff secured first WTA title as she won Upper Austria championships
- The 15-year-old Gauff secured a 6-3, 1-6, 6-2 victory against Jelena Ostapenko
- Hugely talented Gauff spent some of this week doing her high school homework
Coco Gauff spent some of this week doing her high school homework, and ended it by taking the first of what will surely be many titles on the main WTA Tour.
The 15-year-old from Florida beat 2017 French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko 6-3, 1-6, 6-2 to win the Upper Austria championships in Linz.
By doing so she became the youngest player since the Czech Republic’s Nicole Vaidisova in 2004 to win a maiden tour title, and only confirmed the immense promise she showed at Wimbledon and the US Open.
Coco Gauff secured her first WTA Tour title as she won the Upper Austria championships
Gauff, who will now enter the world’s top 75, actually lost in the final qualifying round for the Austrian tournament, but entered the draw as a ‘lucky loser’ thanks to a late withdrawal.
En route to the title she defeated world No 8 Kiki Bertens, and held her nerve in Sunday’s final after becoming nervous when leading 5-0 in the decider.
Meanwhile at the Tianjin Open in China, Heather Watson failed to win her first WTA title in three years when she was beaten 6-4, 6-4 by Sweden’s Rebecca Peterson after a five-hour rain delay saw the match moved indoors.
The 15-year-old Gauff secured a 6-3, 1-6, 6-2 victory in her clash against Jelena Ostapenko
This was Watson’s last match of a season that has ended on a positive note after many disappointments, and she will now be back in the top 100 and straight into the Australian Open main draw in January.
‘In my second round here I played some of the best tennis I’ve ever played,’ she said.
‘I’m really excited for 2020, mostly because of the Olympics which I really want to be involved with because I was also at London and Rio.’
British No 1 Jo Konta is another for whom the season may be over as she has pulled out of this week’s Kremlin Cup in Moscow after failing to recover from a knee injury.
On the men’s tour, Russia’s Daniil Medvedev made himself the world’s third best performer based purely on 2019 results when he thrashed Alex Zverev 6-4, 6-1 to take the Shanghai Masters title, overtaking Roger Federer in the so-called ‘Race to London’ and the ATP Finals.
Heather Watson lost 6-4, 6-4 to Sweden’s Rebecca Peterson at the Tianjin Open in China