Coco Gauff beat fellow American Jessica Pegula 6-4, 6-7 (5), 6-2 in her first match of the 2026 WTA Finals on Sunday at Indian Wells, California.
Competing in Group 1 of the eight-woman round-robin draw, Gauff improved to 6-5 in her career against Pegula after two hours and 39 minutes at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden.
“I was having a lot of fun today,” said the 22-year-old No. 4 seed after the match, joking that she had left bits of rubber from her shoes on court. “I had a match point in the second (set) and I didn’t get too down on myself… I think today, the key was just trying to be aggressive, but I also had to run a lot.”
A turning point in the first set
Gauff, who won the WTA Finals in 2024 and was playing her first match in over a month, held serve from 0-40 down at 4-4 in the first set. She then won the only break of the set in the following game to take early control.
Pegula fights back
Pegula led 5-1 in the second set, but she then lost five straight games and faced match point at 5-6. She regained control in the tiebreaker, however, and levelled the match with a forehand return winner.
Gauff closes it out
The momentum swung back towards Gauff in the final set. The two-time Grand Slam champion won the first three games to lead 5-2. A missed overhead from Pegula gave Gauff two more match points, and Gauff let out a celebratory roar after clinching the match on her third opportunity.
What comes next
Gauff will next face No. 8 seed and reigning Wimbledon champion Linda Noskova, who beat alternate Marta Kostyuk 6-2, 6-4 in the first match of the day.
Kostyuk, who will face Pegula after both lost their opening round-robin matches, was a late substitute for world No. 1 Elena Rybakina. Rybakina, last year’s WTA Finals winner and this year’s Australian Open and US Open champion, withdrew from the season-ending championships citing a viral illness.
Indian Wells, which is home to the annual BNP Paribas Open, is hosting the WTA Finals after instability in the Middle East led to a move away from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where the event had been held since 2024. The WTA Finals will move again in 2027 to Charlotte, North Carolina.