The hidden shift behind Coco Gauff’s breakthrough win — and what it says about her evolution.NN

Reigning champion Coco Gauff bounced back from her tough opening match defeat at the 2025 WTA Finals to claim a dominant win against Jasmine Paolini.

In her second round robin match in Riyadh on Tuesday, Gauff delivered a strong showing to see off Paolini, the world No 8, by a 6-3, 6-2 scoreline.

The world No 3’s victory kept her hopes of progressing to the WTA Finals knockout stage alive heading into the final set of round robin matches.

Coco Gauff makes key serving improvement to beat Jasmine Paolini at WTA Finals

• Coco Gauff remains in the hunt to defend her title at the 2025 WTA Finals after beating Jasmine Paolini
• The American’s serve was much improved against the 29-year-old Italian after she was plagued by double faults in her loss to Jessica Pegula in her opening match
• Gauff identified her serving as the part of her performance she was happiest with

Gauff will face world No.1 Aryna Sabalenka in her third and last match in Group Steffi Graf, and she will likely need to win to give herself a chance of reaching the semi-finals.

Gauff’s key improvement from Pegula defeat

In her 3-6, 7-6(4), 2-6 loss to Pegula in Riyadh, Gauff served an alarming 17 double faults and won only 28% (15 of 53) of her second serve points.

This proved costly as Gauff was broken nine times — and seven times across the two sets she lost.

Against Paolini, Gauff double faulted only three times and won a stellar 75% (15 of 20) of points behind her second serve.

The 21-year-old landed 60% of her first serves and won 67% (20 of 30) of her first serve points as she was broken only once in the match.

This vastly improved serving was the platform for Gauff’s comfortable win, and she also excelled on return as she broke Paolini four times in the Italian’s eight service games.

What Gauff said after beating Paolini

In her on-court interview, Gauff said: “I’m really happy with how I played today, it was definitely a turnaround from my first match.

“It’s the beauty of this tournament that you have another chance to prove yourself. And yeah, hopefully I can do well in my next one to give myself a chance to stay in this tournament.