Coco Gauff vs. Caroline Garcia
This one has the feel of a revenge match, even if the woman taking her revenge doesn’t see it that way.
Last month, Gauff and Garcia met on a big stage: The US Open quarterfinals in Arthur Ashe Stadium. Despite the best efforts of the pro-American crowd, Garcia proved to be the better player on the day, blitzing past Gauff in hyper-aggressive style for a 6-3, 6-4 win. That was her first victory in three tries over the Floridian, but it was by far the most important of their meetings.
Has anything changed since then? Well, kinda. At the time, Garcia was the most in-form player on the tour, having won three titles on three surfaces in three months, including the WTA 1000 in Cincinnati, and she hadn’t dropped a set in her first four matches at the Open. But Garcia’s win over Gauff would prove to be her peak. She lost badly to Ons Jabeur in the semifinals two days later, and she’s 1-3 since, with two first-round losses. She has also split with the coach, Bertrand Perret, who helped take her into the Top 10.
Gauff hasn’t been on fire herself since the Open. She went out in the quarters in Guadalajara and San Diego, where she was soundly beaten by Swiatek. But she’s not in rapid-descent mode the way Garcia seems to be, either. This seems like a regression-to-the-mean moment for their matchup, with Gauff using her superior steadiness to win. Winner: Gauff