Three years after she appeared in her first Roland Garros final, Coco Gauff is a changed player.
No longer a teenager and now a Grand Slam champion herself, the American superstar approaches her third major final with far more belief and experience.
She set up a blockbuster world No.1 v No.2 final against Aryna Sabalenka after ending the unforgettable run of Frenchwoman Lois Boisson.
Earlier on Thursday, Sabalenka snapped Iga Swiatek’s 26-match win streak at the tournament, ending the Pole’s shot at an historic fourth consecutive title.
Sabalenka may have done Gauff a favour.
The world No.1 is the game’s dominant force and into her seventh final this season already, but it’s Swiatek who Gauff has struggled with in Paris.
Swiatek ended her tournament in the 2022 final, 2023 quarterfinals and 2024 semifinals; the last time Gauff lost to anyone else was to eventual champion Barbora Krejcikova in 2021.
“My first final here I was super nervous, and I kind of wrote myself off before the match even happened,” she remembered of the 6-1 6-3 defeat, which left her in tears.
“Obviously here [this year] I have a lot more confidence just from playing a Grand Slam final before and doing well in one.
“I think going into Saturday I'll just give it my best shot and try to be as calm and relaxed as possible.”
Gauff’s next major final came just over a year later where she faced Sabalenka, recovering from a set down and riding vociferous crowd support to win her first Grand Slam title.
It capped a magical US summer hardcourt swing, given she also won the Washington DC and Cincinnati titles.
Yet in a revealing interview, she expressed surprise at winning her first major title in New York.
“I never thought US Open would have been where it would happen,” she laughed in a Tennis Channel appearance. “I always thought it would have been Roland Garros, because all my best results have been on clay.”
The facts and figures show exactly that – Roland Garros is by far her best Slam.
Gauff’s weekend win over Ekaterina Alexandrova propelled her into a fifth consecutive French quarterfinal, making her the youngest woman to reach five consecutive quarterfinals at the same Slam since Venus Williams at the 2001 US Open.
It also meant more than half of her nine career Slam quarterfinal showings have come at Roland Garros alone.
With her semifinal win over Boisson, she improved her win-loss record at the tournament to 26-5, meaning she’s won almost 84 per cent of her matches.
Since her US Open win, Gauff has risen as high as world No.2, successfully navigated technical challenges in her game, and continued to accrue big titles, such as last year’s WTA Finals shortly after she captured the 1000-level trophy in Beijing.
The longer she spends on tour, and the more experience she banks, the less of a big deal things seem – making Saturday’s final easier to approach.
“I think [it’s about] just realising how minuscule it is. Like everybody is dealing with way bigger things in life than losing a final,” she said.
“And also realising that… many players wanted to be in this position. I'm sure there are hundreds of players that would kill to win or lose a final, so just knowing that, making me realise how lucky and privileged I am to be in this position.
“At first I thought it would be the end of the world if I lost, and the sun still rose the next day. So knowing, regardless of the result, the sun will still rise.
“Just realising that how big the moment seems in our lives is not as big in the grand scheme of things.”
Gauff has now reached consecutive claycourt finals in Madrid, Rome and Paris, entering her clash against Sabalenka having won 16 of her past 18 matches on the surface.
One of those two losses came to Sabalenka in the Madrid final, but Gauff will fancy her chances when they meet again on Saturday.
The head-to-head series is tied at 5-5, as well as 1-1 on clay, 1-1 at Grand Slams and 1-1.
History shows she has just as good a chance of winning as her big-hitting rival.
“Obviously she's someone who has great big shots, and she's going to come out aggressive, she's going to come out swinging. I think I just have to expect that and do my best to kind of counter that,” Gauff said.
“I think the past experience that I've played her, we had some up-and-down matches, we had some that I won straight sets and her vice versa.
“Anything can happen on Saturday. But I'm looking forward to it, and glad to be going up against a World No.1, too.”