WUHAN, October 11, 2025 (Press Release)
Coco Gauff will play Jessica Pegula for the DONGFENG • VOYAH WUHAN OPEN trophy after Gauff overcame Jasmine Paolini and Pegula scored a stunning upset win to snap World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka’s 20-match winning streak in Wuhan in Saturday’s semi-finals.
The US-American’s gripping 2-6 6-4 7-6(2) win over three-time Wuhan champion Sabalenka captivated the center court crowd at the Optics Valley Tennis Center, especially during a dramatic third set which saw Pegula come from 2-5 down only to have to regroup when Sabalenka threatened a fightback of her own. Pegula held firm in the tiebreaker, inflicting Sabalenka’s first ever defeat in the city where she is nicknamed “Queen of Wuhan”.
BREATHTAKING
Jess Pegula battles back from a set down against Sabalenka to win the deciding tiebreak 7-2. An absolute classic in Wuhan!
#WuhanOpen pic.twitter.com/bEXfnfZKnC— wta (@WTA) October 11, 2025
It marked Pegula’s eighth consecutive three-set match and reversed her recent US Open semi-final loss to Sabalenka. Sunday will mark Wuhan’s first all-American final. Venus Williams, who won the title in 2015, is Wuhan’s only previous American champion in singles.
“That was crazy, I can’t believe I came back and won that,” Pegula told the crowd. “I was clearly very nervous trying to serve it out, lost my timing, lost my rhythm, trying to go for too much but I bounced right back in the tiebreak. I’m just really proud of myself. I’ve played so much tennis the last few weeks, so many three-set matches but I feel like I’m very tough right now and I’m just using that as best I can.”
Gauff, the reigning Roland Garros champion, continued her strong record in China with a 6-4 6-3 win over Paolini, a player she has struggled against in recent matches. “I hadn’t beaten her this year yet, so I had a lot of extra motivation to try to get close to that head-to-head,” said Gauff, who won the China Open last year.
“And yeah, I learned a lot from our last match and I was just trying not to make it a repeat today. I think mentally I was able to calm her nerves and get through it.”
Pegula and Gauff, who are former doubles partners, have played six times but this will be their first meeting this season and their first in a final. Pegula leads their head-to-head record 4-2 but Gauff won their most recent match, at last year’s WTA Finals in Riyadh.
“We know each other’s games so well. I mean, we know each other so well,” said Pegula, who lives and trains close to her fellow US-American. “We know each other’s teams really well. So, I mean, there’s no secrets. We know what we’re both going to try and do. And I think, you know, it just comes down to executing.”
