Coco Gauff beats Jessica Pegula 6-2, 6-4 to win Cincinnati Open
On 24 August 2026, Coco Gauff beat Jessica Pegula 6-2, 6-4 in the final of the Cincinnati Open to win the title. The victory was Gauff's first title of the season and the second Cincinnati crown of her career.
One year earlier Gauff's career was at a crossroads as serve problems and a loss of confidence had dominated her game, prompting major changes to her team. In her 2025 Cincinnati quarter-final loss to Jasmine Paolini she served 16 double faults and made 62 unforced errors. That defeat led Gauff to hire Gavin MacMillan, the biomechanics expert, to completely reshape her serve, a process she began the week before the US Open last year. During her second round match against Donna Vekic at the US Open last year, Gauff cried on the court.
The fourth-seeded Gauff reached her fifth WTA 1000 semi-final of the season and her third final; after dropping her first set of the tournament to Liudmila Samsonova she won the subsequent 10 sets en route to the title, which was her fourth career WTA 1000 trophy. The 22-year-old had been fairly consistent over the previous five months but had not finished any tournament this season without a defeat until Cincinnati.
In the final Gauff attacked her serve, repeatedly cranking her first delivery above 120mph and moving forward whenever Pegula sent the ball short, while her defensive movement repeatedly unsettled the third seed. “It’s just so hard when you play somebody that moves... I mean, she’s the best mover on tour, I think by far,” Pegula said. “Just the way that she’s able to defend out of the corners is better than anybody else, and that’s truly her strength. So when she’s doing that and able to move forward and able to serve well and return well, it becomes very difficult.”
Pegula reached the final as the third seed after consecutive three-set victories over Sorana Cîrstea, Amanda Anisimova and the defending champion Iga Swiatek, the latter described in the report as her best win of the year. Her run was noted alongside Gauff's and the Toronto champion Swiatek as examples of players arriving at the US Open in strong form.
Gauff, who has frequently been involved in dramatic three-set matches, said: “A lot of my supporters are like, ‘I can’t take these three set wins’ and my mom’s showing her heart rate going up and down,” said Gauff, laughing. “So hopefully I gave my team a little bit of a break this week. Can’t say the same for New York. It’s a grand slam, but I definitely was thinking about it. I was like, for the sake of my own mind and body, I was trying to get these done in two sets.”
Both Gauff and Pegula head to the US Open as in-form players. Pegula will be desperate to turn her excellent results into a maiden grand slam title on home soil.
