The world number one from Belarus, fresh off her first triumph in the California desert, became the fifth woman – and the first since Iga Swiatek in 2022 – to win both of the elite early-season hardcourt WTA 1000 titles.
“That sounds crazy, sounds unreal,” Sabalenka told Tennis Channel. “I’m just super grateful, super happy and super proud right now.”
Sabalenka underscored her WTA dominance in a season in which her only defeat to date was her Australian Open finals loss to Elena Rybakina – who she went on to beat in the Indian Wells title match and in the semi-finals here.
She handed Gauff her first career defeat in a hardcourt final.
The American had won her first nine, including a triumph over Sabalenka in the 2023 US Open championship match.
Gauff had also beaten the Belarusian for the title on the red clay of Roland Garros last year.
So Sabalenka said she wasn’t surprised to see Gauff dig in, even after the Belarusian pocketed the first set with a ruthless display of power and precision.
She broke Gauff to open the match and, after Gauff saved three break points in a gritty fifth game, broke the American again in the seventh before serving it out in 37 minutes without facing a break point herself.
In a tense second set, Gauff’s first break point chance – from a blistering backhand passing winner in the second game – sparked a jubilant reaction from the crowd at Hard Rock Stadium, home of the NFL’s Miami Dolphins that is just about an hour away from Gauff’s Delray Beach home.
But Gauff couldn’t convert, slamming a forehand into the net on the next point as Sabalenka held.
It needed another gutsy hold from Gauff to keep it on serve in the fifth game.
Up 40-0, she wasted three game points with a pair of errors off the ground and a double fault then had to save a break point before taking the game on her fifth game point.
Gauff, finding more depth on her ground strokes to ramp up the pressure on Sabalenka, broke for the first time to take the second set.
“I know Coco quite well,” Sabalenka said. “I know that she’s not going to, like, give me this final easily. I knew that she’s going to be fighting, she’s going to be moving well, she’s going to be trying to put literally every ball back on my side.
“I lost a couple of opportunities in that second set, but I was just trying to stay mentally positive going into the third set.”
And the third set, again, was virtually all Sabalenka.
She broke to open the final frame and broke again when Gauff sailed a backhand long on Sabalenka’s first match point.
“What can be better than this month?” said Sabalenka, who along with two prestigious titles acquired a new puppy and got engaged to boyfriend Georgios Frangulis.
Gauff was also feeling grateful after a rocky March that saw her withdraw from her third-round match at Indian Wells with a nerve issue that caused “scary” pain in her left arm.
She had said after a dominant semi-final win over Karolina Muchova that she was making progress with the inconsistencies in her serve and forehand.
And after considering skipping the event, the 22-year-old was thrilled to reach the final for the first time.
“I don’t think with the conversations we had earlier that this was the result we were expecting,” she said at the trophy presentation.
“So although it sucks to not come out with a bigger trophy today I had a lot of joy this week and that’s something that I’m taking away from this the most.” (AFP)
Edited by Tony Sabine
