The final of the WTA 1000 China Open in Beijing will see Coco Gauff and Karolina Muchova compete in Sunday’s trophy match after successfully winning their respective semi-finals against Paula Badosa and Zheng Qinwen. We played a year ago, so we are different players today and tomorrow. I’ll just try to play my best and challenge her and hope for the best result tomorrow. I said it in the past, I didn’t know how this year is going to look like, if I will play, if I will not play, what my level is going to be. Making a final here, it’s just so nice. Such a nice feeling. Karolina Muchova
Gauff, the World No 6, came from a set and a break down to defeat 19th-ranked Badosa, 4-6 6-4 6-2, the 20-year-old American coming from 6-4, 4-2 down in the first semi-final on Saturday.
Looking to capture her 2nd career WTA 1000 title, and 8th overall, Gauff will face Muchova, the US Open semi-finalist, in the final after the unseeded Czech topple Chinese favourite Zheng, the reigning Olympic Gold medalist, 6-3 6-4 in their semi-final on Saturday night in an hour and 47 minutes of play.
Gauff’s win over Badosa is her 20th WTA 1000 win of the year, the most she has won in a single season, and boosts her chances of qualifying for the WTA Finals Riyadh for a 3rd straight year.
The American is the youngest player to reach consecutive Beijing semi-finals since Maria Sharapova in 2004 and 2005, and is playing her first tournament since adding Matt Daly to her coaching team alongside long-time coach Jean-Christophe Faurel.
The 4th seed came back from a set down to upend Badosa in 3 sets in a rematch of their Last 16 encounter in Rome, which Gauff won 5-7, 6-4, 6-1, and she has now levelled their head-to-head at 3-3.
Badosa sealed the 59-minute opening set by bouncing back from being broken in a 10-deuce, 26-point service game.
Serving with a break advantage at 4-3, Badosa saved 7 break points before Gauff finally broke through to level the set, but the Spaniard responded immediately, breaking back at 15 to regain her foothold, and then served out the set.
Badosa quickly built a 3-1 lead in the second before Gauff found a way back, saving 4 break points to hold for 3-2 and then surging to the finish, breaking the Spaniard to level at 4-4, before forcing a third set.
“I feel, like, I was playing the right way the whole time, other than maybe a lot of double-faults,” Gauff said afterwards. “But, other than that, I was playing the right way. Just missing sometimes. She was playing a very high level.“I was just trying to get on the scoreboard, and keep trying to get points on the scoreboard. They turned into games. I was trying to stay in the moment.”
Gauff reeled off 6 games in a row before Badosa snapped her streak at 2-1 in the decider.
When Badosa broke to level at 2-2, she was unable to hold off Gauff in the next game, and she nearly dug herself out of a 0-40 game, but the American seized her chance on her 4th break point to lead 4-1, and then protected her lead to the finish line.
Gauff finished with 38 winners to 39 unforced errors, 11 of which came as double-faults, while she generated 20 break point chances, breaking 6 times, and held Badosa to 24 winners.
Her opponent in the final is Muchova, whose come-back from injury continues to rapidly gather momentum as 28-year old moved into the championship match with an emphatic win over 5th-seeded Zheng Qinwen, her 2nd Top 10 win this week.
She snapped top-seeded Aryna Sabalenka’s 15-match winning streak in Friday’s quarter-finals.
“I’m just happy I was able to perform well against these big players, and put up my game and that I could see that, yeah, I can face them, I can beat them,” said the former World No 8, who has risen back to No 49 since returning to the tour this summer.
Muchova, who improved to a 2-1 lead in her head-to-head with Zheng, avenging a loss in this summer’s Palermo final, is now into her second career WTA 1000 final, following her runner-up showing at Cincinnati last year.
The Czech earned the first break point of the day when she fired a backhand winner at 3-2 in the opener.
On break point, Zheng stumbled and fell on the court, losing her service to fall behind 4-2, and needing an immediate medical time-out.
After treatment, the Chinese conjured up a break point at 5-3 to get back on serve, but Muchova swatted that away with a fine un-returnable serve, and an ace lined up set point, which the Czech converted after she forced Zheng to fire long.
Margins were extremely fine in the opener, in which each had 7 winners and 1 break point, but Muchova converted her break point chance, while Zheng could not, and the Czech had just 5 unforced errors to the Chinese’s 11.
A Zheng double-fault handed Muchova a love break at 2-1 in the second, and although she evaded 2 match points at 5-3 with nearly identical booming serve-and-forehand combos, the calm Czech served the win out at love in the following game, having not dropped her serve during the match.
“Tough battle out there today,” Muchova said later. “I was happy I was able to hold my serve during the whole match. That helped a lot. Glad that I was able to close it in two sets today.”
And so the final sets up a rematch of the 2023 Cincinnati final, when Muchova takes on Gauff for this year’s Beijing title, Gauff having notched up a 6-3 6-4 win to claim the title last summer.
Weeks later, Gauff improved to 2-0 when she beat the Czech in the 2023 US Open semi-finals, 6-4 7-5, on her way to the American’s first Grand Slam title.
“We played a year ago, so we are different players today and tomorrow,” Muchova said. “I’ll just try to play my best and challenge her and hope for the best result tomorrow.”
After her 2023 US Open semi-final run, Muchova missed 10 months of action due to injury, and she eventually underwent wrist surgery in February 2024, but her good form has remained mostly intact since returning to tour in June.
Muchova has played 7 events in her come-back, and has already posted strong results, including her runner-up result to Zheng at Palermo, and a repeat semi-final run at this year’s US Open.
Now she is now back in a WTA 1000 final.
“I said it in the past, I didn’t know how this year is going to look like, if I will play, if I will not play, what my level is going to be,” Muchova said. “Making a final here, it’s just so nice. Such a nice feeling.”
