French Open final: Coco Gauff beats Aryna Sabalenka to win second Grand Slam title

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ROLAND GARROS, PARIS — Coco Gauff beat Aryna Sabalenka 6-7(5), 6-2, 6-4 in the French Open final at Roland Garros Saturday.
The No. 2 seed prevailed over the No. 1 seed in a chaotic, tense and enthralling match, ultimately decided by Sabalenka's first-strike tennis, Gauff's adaptability to the conditions and the most unsatisfying statistic in tennis.
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It is Gauff's first French Open title and her second Grand Slam singles title. It brings her closer to Sabalenka, the runaway world No. 1 in the rankings, and gives Gauff her first major title away from the hard courts of the U.S. Open.
's writers, Charlie Eccleshare and Matt Futterman, analyze the final and its ramifications.
Sabalenka's drop shots took away Gauff's favorite territory — until she stopped
Sabalenka's transformation from nearly winner to Grand Slam champion and dominant world No. 1 is built on the variety she has added to her game over the past 18 months.
Her effective but one-dimensional power game is now far more rounded, and the first set of Saturday's final demonstrated how important touch and feel have become. Sabalenka started the match using her much-improved and now extremely dangerous drop shot, but it vanished midway through the set, as she tightened up against an opponent who was defending brilliantly from the back of the court but not so brilliantly at the front.
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A match that started as a first-strike battle won by Sabalenka's considerably heavier artillery evolved into a contest in moving side to side along the baseline, a contest that Sabalenka was never going to win without a release valve: her drop shot. In similar situations at last year's U.S. Open — her semifinal against Emma Navarro and the final against Jessica Pegula — Sabalenka turned to drop shots and short angles to pull herself out of patterns she wasn't enjoying.
Against Gauff Saturday, the opportunity was there to do it again, but Sabalenka just didn't do it. The period she abandoned the shot entirely coincided with Gauff surging back into the set from 4-1 down to 4-4, but Sabalenka found it again at crunch time. Sabalenka used the drop shot three times to break for 6-5, including the last two points of the game.
She couldn't serve the set out, but in the tiebreak, she kept herself alive with a forehand drop shot winner to reduce the deficit to 4-3. And then, from 5-5, she sealed the set with a nerveless drop shot at the end of a lengthy rally — precisely the tactic she should have been using earlier in the set — and then a perfect stop volley on the next point.
Gauff played the match in front of her
'Champions adjust' is one of Billie Jean King's favourite maxims, and it was Gauff who did it all match long.
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Sabalenka played her semifinal against Iga Świątek under the roof, and the controlled conditions eliminated a variable for her when Świątek started blasting her forehand and moving Sabalenka around the court.
Not so Saturday, when the wind was undoubtedly an irritant to both players, but affected Sabalenka much more than Gauff — not in the sense that she couldn't play in it, but that on a tennis court, when things get difficult and confidence starts to fade, any external factor, whether wind, sun, spectators, or anything else, has the potential to turn from an uncontrollable to manage into an irritant.
Sabalenka often waited and waited before serving to let a gust die down, and looked uncomfortable shifting her feet when the wind caused the ball to change direction. Her expressiveness seems to generally work just fine for her — one of her team's mantras is 'don't fight it, don't feed it' — but in repeatedly venting her frustration about the wind, she showed her hand to Gauff.
Gauff appeared unmoved by the conditions throughout. She played high-margin tennis, let Sabalenka move her from side to side and accepted that the points she lost to blistering winners and feathered drop shots would fade into the final reckoning on the scoreboard.
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The final game epitomized this. Sabalenka hit a winner on the back of the line to save a match point, but Gauff played cleaner overall, taking the final when Sabalenka blazed a last backhand long.
The game that could have been pivotal but instead became a blip
Sabalenka's turnaround, from a player who always seemed to unravel in late rounds into one who gets over the line, has come from her ability to bounce back from messy points and games and sets. She's had plenty of those in 2025, but has almost always come out on top, because her opponents don't have the firepower required to put her away.
The 10th game of the first set epitomized a roller-coaster of an opening set that saw Sabalenka serving a point away from 5-1, then even at 4-4, then holding multiple set points at 5-4, then getting broken. At one point she was on the edge of losing a set that she probably should have won at a canter.
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And ever there was a game that should have broken a player's spirit it was that 10th game.
Sabalenka double-faulted on one set point. She hit into the net with another. Then she saved two break-point chances with a big serve and a net rush. She hit another backhand error for another break point. Then, after clawing it back to deuce, she netted an easy volley and had to come up with a big serve to save another break point.
But then came two more forehand errors, and Gauff had drawn even at 5-5.
A double break lead was gone. Three set points had gone away. Gauff had won six points after getting to deuce, and all six of them had been Sabalenka errors. This is where the old Sabalenka folds and a player like Gauff locks in and cruises. But that's not the way it went.
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It took Sabalenka about four seconds to bounce back, showcasing her newfound variety in the form of two drop shots combined with a laced backhand to the postage stamp to get another break. She would once more fail to serve out, and she'd even fall well behind in the tiebreak, too.
But in the moments that decided the set, Sabalenka played with more courage. Gauff blooped in a second serve at 5-4 that Sabalenka pummelled. Two drop shots created the openings for her to win the next two points.
And with that, game 10 became nothing more than a blip, a test that Sabalenka had come up short in in the moment but ultimately passed. Like it so often in tennis, all that matters is what a player does next. Ultimately, getting over the line was beyond her Saturday.
A match to test the limits of tennis' most unsatisfactory statistic
The unforced error statistic is one of the most debated in tennis. Some argue that an error is very rarely entirely unforced, because even the simplest misses can result from the accumulation of pressure over several points. The opponent and occasion can make a huge difference, as played out in Gauff's mastery of the conditions at Roland Garros Saturday.
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Both were clearly a major reason for Sabalenka's extremely high number on Saturday. The way she plays means there's always scope for mistakes to creep in, because her style of tennis is inherently so aggressive.
On Saturday, her numbers were not good — 70 unforced errors to 37 winners — with the unforced errors making up 59 percent of Gauff's total points won. Was this simply a case of her game breaking down? Almost certainly not. So many of the mistakes she made came at the end of long rallies which she would have won against the overwhelming majority of other players on tour.
But against Gauff, the game's most durable defender, Sabalenka found herself having to go for the lines because nothing else would do. Inevitably those smaller margins led to more mistakes. The French Open's statistics do record forced errors, putting Sabalenka at 19 for the match, but so many of the 'unforced' felt like something more.
The combination of opponent, stakes and conditions was one that Sabalenka battled against all afternoon.
What did Coco Gauff say after the final?
We'll bring your their on-court quotes and press conference reflections as they come in.
What did Aryna Sabalenka say after the final?
We'll bring your their on-court quotes and press conference reflections as they come in.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Tennis, Women's Tennis
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