WTA Finals Preview: Aryna Sabalenka vs. Coco Gauff leads semifinal slate

Zheng Qinwen vs. Barbora Krejcikova

You don’t get many matchups that feel new at a year-end championship. By the end of a season, the elite players have typically met more than once on a significant stage over the previous 10 months.

But Zheng-Krejcikova feels new. As Zheng has risen over the past two years, Krejcikova has spent a lot of time on the sidelines. They’ve crossed paths just once, last fall on a hard court in Zhengzhou, where Zheng won 6-4 in the third set.

A result that close gives us almost no information on who might win when they play again in the first semifinal in Riyadh on Friday. Their current form doesn’t help much either, since they’ve both hit the ball well enough, and confidently enough, to make it this far.

Krejcikova came to the WTA Finals having played just two matches since winning Wimbledon, and said that the idea of making the semis was “imaginable” when she started the week. But she picked up right where she left off in Centre Court. She nearly beat Iga Swiatek, then took out Jessica Pegula and Coco Gauff in straight sets to advance. This hard court appears to be her liking, because for the majority of her time on it, she has been dictating the action.

It took Zheng a little longer to get going. She lost her opener to Aryna Sabalenka, and nearly lost the first two sets to Elena Rybakina. But something clicked in the third. She won it 6-1, then handed out two more breadsticks to Jasmine Paolini in her final match.

Zheng and Krejcikova should make for an interesting and unpredictable contrast.

With Zheng, you have a mostly meat-and-potatoes power baseliner, someone who rips her forehand and two-handed backhand with topspin and wins by beating her opponents with pace.

For her part, Krejcikova loves to disrupt that type of player, with her sliding serve out wide, her ability to finish at net, her slice backhand that gives her opponents no pace to work with, and the forehand she takes so early.

As for their weaknesses, both women are liable to throw in a clunker of a performance now and then. Zheng’s aggression can turn to overhitting, and Krejcikova can’t always marshal all of her weapons. Krejcikova has also struggled to close in Riyadh; she was up a set and two breaks against Swiatek before losing.

But I’ll say that Krejcikova’s game will disrupt enough of Zheng’s to get her through. Winner: Krejcikova

Aryna Sabalenka vs. Coco Gauff

In contrast to Friday’s first semifinal, Sabalenka-Gauff is a matchup we know well. They’ve played eight times since 2020, and they’ve split those meetings evenly.

Before this season, the American was a thorn in the higher-ranked Belarusian’s side. Gauff won four of their first six meetings, including a three-setter in last year’s US Open final, mostly by running down balls and coaxing Sabalenka to self-destruct. So far this season Sabalenka has avoided that fate. She beat Gauff in two close sets at the Australian Open, and three close sets in Wuhan last month. That latter result would seem to indicate that, while Sabalenka has become the world’s best player in 2024, she hasn’t completely distanced herself from her pesky former nemesis.

Looking at her recent record, you would think that Gauff is playing her best at the moment. She won Beijing, made the semis in Wuhan and recorded just her second win over Swiatek in 13 tries in Riyadh. But Gauff’s form and body language this week hasn’t told the same confident story that her fall results have. She double faulted 11 times against Swiatek, and she struggled mightily to keep her forehand under control in her loss to Krejcikova on Thursday. These days Gauff is trying a new grip on her serve, and a new, whippier swing on her forehand. That’s not always going to be a smooth or successful process, and she has clearly been frustrated by it.

Sabalenka, meanwhile, has mostly kept chugging to the finish line, despite having the year-end No. 1 ranking already locked up. She beat Zheng and Paolini in straights, before seeming to run out of gas in the third set against Rybakina on Thursday. Even if little is on the line for Sabalenka in this semifinal as far as 2024 is concerned, she should want to send a message to Gauff for 2025.

Sabalenka will have the power advantage with each shot; all she’ll have to do is get enough of those shots in. That’s easier said than done against Gauff, obviously, but Sabalenka’s increased consistency, and her new resistance to implosion, is what has made her No. 1. Winner: Sabalenka