Coco Gauff is the 2025 French Open champion, having defeated Aryna Sabalenka in three tight sets.
The match was marred by poor serving throughout, but in the end, it was the American whose mental fortitude shone through once again.
For someone so young, she boasts maturity that far belies her age, and it is helping her create history.
A US Open champion in 2023, and now a French Open champion in 2025, these are the kind of key victories that can spark a period of dominance over the WTA.
That is exactly what Mary Joe Fernandez thinks might happen.
Coco Gauff predicted to dominate the women’s tour
Speaking live on TNT Sports, naturally the praise flooded in for Coco Gauff.
Tim Henman was keen to lead it, stating: ‘I think the reality is that there is still room for so much improvement. When we have focused over the clay court season on the second serve and the forehand, she has just been finding a way to fight those mistakes off.
‘If she can make a few technical changes and improve those shots then she is going to be even tougher to beat.’
Fernandez would expand on this, making a prediction for how this title could project her career to stratospheric heights.
She claimed: ‘I think the minute that the forehand becomes more of a weapon and she has safety on the second serve, and feels like she is not going to double fault, and it’s not going to be a shot that is vulnerable. How do you beat her? She is going to have the perfect defence, she is going to have the perfect offence. She has a big first serve. Brilliant backhand. She has to work on coming forward, but it’s scary for the rest of the women’s tour how much better she can get.’
Lindsay Davenport’s Roland Garros final prediction did not end up coming true, but she did forecast Gauff’s growth throughout the tournament.
Aryna Sabalenka makes controversial claim about Coco Gauff’s title
Whilst the afternoon was a wholly triumphant one for Gauff, Sabalenka did her best to try and mar it with some questionable post-match comments.
Talking in her post-match press conference, the 27-year-old reviewed her own performance with disdain.
After all, she struck 70 unforced errors, a devastating rarity for the world number one.
However, Sabalenka then suggested that, had Iga Swiatek taken her place, she would have managed what she could not.
She claimed: ‘Honestly, it’s the worst match I’ve played in the last two months. I wouldn’t mind playing like that in, I don’t know, the fourth round or the quarterfinals, but in a Grand Slam final, it’s a little… not right.
‘That hurts. Especially when you’ve been playing really good tennis all week. If Iga had beaten me the other day, I think I would have gone out today and gotten the win. It just hurts. I’ve been playing really well, and then in the last match, going out there and doing what I did, it hurts.’
