Coco Gauff demolishes Jessica Pegula to win second Cincinnati Open title
Coco Gauff won her second Cincinnati Open title on Sunday, August 23, beating fellow American Jessica Pegula 6-2, 6-4 in straight sets at the P&G Center Court. The victory gave the 22-year-old her first trophy of the 2026 season and the fourth WTA 1000 title of her career — WTA 1000 being the tier just below the Grand Slams, where the world's best players compete (The Guardian).
Gauff, the fourth seed, was ruthless from the start. She repeatedly hit first serves above 120mph, a startling number for the women's game, and never allowed Pegula — the third seed and world No. 3 — a foothold in the match. The scoreline tells the story: one break early in each set was enough.
The contrast with last year could hardly be sharper. At the 2025 Cincinnati Open, Gauff served 16 double faults and hit 62 unforced errors in a quarter-final loss to Italy's Jasmine Paolini. That defeat prompted her to hire biomechanics expert Gavin MacMillan to completely rebuild her serve — the motion, the toss, the whole delivery. Ten months on, the overhaul is producing results that speak for themselves.
Gauff's path to the trophy showed the same resilience. She lost the opening set of her first match against Liudmila Samsonova, then won the next ten sets in a row to reach the final. Her semi-final was a 76-minute dismantling of Sara Bejlek, 6-4, 6-1. Pegula's route was far more gruelling: she needed 2 hours and 47 minutes to outlast Iga Swiatek 7-5, 4-6, 6-4 in their semi-final, and the fatigue may have told on Sunday.
The final was an all-American affair — the first time two Americans had met for the Cincinnati women's title in recent memory. Both players are products of the same US tennis pipeline, and both arrived in form, but Gauff's serving made the difference. When you can hit first serves at 120mph and land them in play, the returner is guessing, not reacting.
This was Gauff's fifth WTA 1000 semi-final of the 2026 season and her third final. That level of consistency at the top tier puts her among the most reliable performers on tour this year, even before this title ended her trophy drought. For Pegula, ranked No. 3 in the world, it was a disappointing end to a strong week that had included the signature win over Swiatek.
Elsewhere in Cincinnati, 20-year-old Frenchman Arthur Fils won the men's singles title, while Brazil's Orlando Luz and Rafael Matos took the men's doubles, beating Germany's Konstantin Frantzen and Tim Haase 6-4, 3-6, 10-7 to complete a rare Canada-Cincinnati double — winning back-to-back Masters tournaments in North America, a feat only four other doubles teams have managed.
For Gauff, though, the weekend belonged to her. A rebuilt serve, a first title of the year, and a statement of intent with the US Open just days away.
