Coco Gauff will battle for another trophy on Wednesday night.
Despite crashing out of the singles draw at the Canadian Open to Victoria Mboko, Gauff will play in the doubles final with partner McCartney Kessler.
It’s been anything but an easy route to the final for Kessler and Gauff.
The pair have had to win final set tiebreaks in their last three matches, including their semifinal win over Olga Danilovic and Su-wei Hsieh, in which they were a set down.
A dismal grass-court campaign, which included back-to-back first-round exits in Berlin and Wimbledon, was followed by that fourth-round exit to Mboko.
The 21-year-old has had issues with her serve in particular, committing 42 double faults in her three singles matches in Canada.
So, as Gauff prepares for her doubles final with Kessler, she hasn’t shied away from trying to explain the “weird” difference in her serving ability in singles and doubles.
“My doubles yesterday, I hit zero double faults,” she said.
“I just would like to serve how I do in doubles in singles.”
“You know, it’s weird, I feel more pressure serving in doubles than in singles because I don’t want to sit here and give the match away for my partner. So I’m trying to take that mentality into singles, but it’s not so easy.”
Gauff, along with Kessler, will have to keep errors to a minimum if they are to win what will be a huge test in the final, as they face Taylor Townsend and Zhang Shuai.
Third seeds Townsend and Shuai are an experienced doubles team with 25 titles between the pair, including their most recent Washington championship.
While Gauff is no stranger to doubles success, having won the French Open in 2024, her partner Kessler has won zero.
Furthermore, this American pairing is a new one, with Gauff going through several partners since she split with her long-term partner Jessica Pegula.
Why did Jessica Pegula and Coco Gauff stop playing doubles?
Gauff and Pegula were a successful doubles team.
The Americans picked up three WTA 1000 titles together, reached the French Open women’s doubles final in 2022 and have been No.1 and No.2 in the rankings.
Having played together at Wimbledon in 2024 – just a few weeks after Gauff teamed up with Katarina Siniakova to win the women’s doubles at the French Open – the pair teamed up for a final team in Paris.
Pegula and Gauff were the top seeds for the women’s doubles at the Paris Olympics, but suffered a surprised second round defeat and that was to be their last outing together.
Not long after the split, Pegula confirmed their intention to not play as much together, with both players choosing to focus on their singles career.
“I know Coco isn’t interested in playing, or at least I’m not, we’re not thinking of playing, so I probably will take it easy on the doubles the rest of the year, so, yeah, we’ll see,” she said in 2024.
“I think I’ll just play maybe whenever I kind of want to. And maybe just focus on singles the rest of the year.”
Earlier this year, Pegula confirmed that they were no longer working together as a doubles team when quizzed on whether the pair might team up did not suggest a reunion was on the cards.
“I mean, Coco and I played so much for a couple of years there,” the heiress to the $7 billion Pegula family fortune said.
“We did great. A lot of really amazing results and memories.
“At the same time, doing well in the singles court, we obviously didn’t want to play as much anymore.”
Gauff has not played doubles in any of the majors this year, including at Roland Garros where she won the women’s singles to claim a second career Grand Slam.
She has yet to announce whether she will be playing women’s doubles but she is not one of the partnerships for the all-star mixed doubles event at Flushing Meadows.
Pegula has confirmed she will play alongside Tommy Paul at the U.S. Open.