Coco Gauff Triumphs in Top Two Battle at 2025 French Open

American women have now won the two Grand Slams of 2025 so far.

In a high intensity, very tight match, Coco Gauff of the United States, 21, defeated Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus, 27, to win the Women’s Singles title at the 2025 French Open in Paris, France (a Grand Slam event). The score in the final was 6-7 (5-7 tiebreaker), 6-2 and 6-4 in favor of Gauff.

This was the eleventh match Gauff and Sabalenka have played against each other on the WTA Tour. They were previously tied 5-5 in their head-to-head. Moreover, this was the third final they’ve battled against each other. Gauff won in their Grand Slam final at the U.S. Open in September 2023. Meanwhile, Sabalenka prevailed last month at the Madrid Open final.

Sabalenka has now reached the final in three consecutive Grand Slam events. She becomes the first player to accomplish this feat since Serena Williams in 2016. In all of them, the Belarusian has faced off against an American. At the 2024 U.S. Open, she triumphed against Jessica Pegula. At the 2025 Australian Open, Madison Keys prevailed against the defending champion.

The match between Sabalenka and Gauff marked the first French Open final contested between the WTA’s Number 1 and 2 players since 2013. Also, this was the first Grand Slam in which both the men’s and women’s singles finals featured the top two players since the 2013 U.S. Open and the first time at Roland Garros since 1984. Notably, the Number 1 ranking wasn’t on the line for either the men or women.

Today’s victory was the first title Gauff has won on the 2025 WTA Tour and the tenth title of her career in single’s competition. Notably, this was the second title she has claimed from a clay court event and her second from a Grand Slam tournament. This was the first time she has taken the title at Roland Garros. She reached the final here in 2022. She previously won the sport’s biggest titles at the U.S. Open in 2023. Moreover, she becomes the first player representing the United States to win the title in Paris since Serena Williams triumphed for the third time in 2015. And finally, she is now the youngest player to reach the clay court finals in Madrid, Rome and Paris in the same year.

Iga Świątek of Poland (No. 5) was the Grand Slam’s three-time reigning champion. She was trying to become the first player to ever win the event in four consecutive years. However, she lost in the semifinals against Sabalenka. That ended her 26-match win streak at Roland Garros, which is second only to Chris Evert’s 29 consecutive wins.

Gauff arrived in the final after winning against Olivia Gadecki of Australia (No. 91), qualifier Tereza Valentová the Czech Republic (No. 172), Marie Bouzková of the Czech Republic (No. 47), 20th seed Ekaterina Alexandrova of Russia (No. 20), 7th seed Madison Keys of the United States (No. 8), and wildcard Loïs Boisson of France (No. 361). This was the 13th WTA final she has competed in and her third at a Grand Slam event. To claim the title for the first time, she had to prevail against the reigning Australian Open champion (Keys) and the reigning U.S. Open champion (Sabalenka). This was also the first time she has triumphed against the tour’s Number 1 player in a major.

In the other half of the main draw, Sabalenka defeated Kamilla Rakhimova of Russia (No. 86), Jil Teichmann of Switzerland (No. 97), Olga Danilović of Serbia (No. 34), 16th seed Amanda Anisimova of the United States (No. 16), eighth seed Zheng Qinwen of China (No. 7), and 5th seed Świątek. This was the 38th WTA final she has contested and her sixth at a Grand Slam event.

The revised rankings for the 2025 WTA Tour will be officially released on Monday, June 9. The tour will then commerce the grass court season with two tournaments from June 9-15: the Queen’s Club Championships in London, United Kingdom (a WTA 500 event) and the Libéma Open in Rosmalen, Netherlands (a WTA 250 event).

This will mark the first edition of the Queen’s Club Championships on the WTA Tour since 1973. Zheng and Keys are scheduled to play as the competition’s top two seeds. Meanwhile, Liudmila Samsonova of Russia (No. 18) is the reigning champion at the Libéma Open. She will be attempting to defend the title as the event’s top seed this year.

Gauff and Sabalenka will be taking the week off following their runs at Roland Garros over the last two weeks. They will start their grass court seasons the following week as the top two seeds at the German Open.