Coco Gauff says how she’ll feel if she fails to qualify for the WTA Finals this year

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Coco Gauff made a surprising admission about the possibility of not qualifying for the WTA Finals.

Following a woeful summer by her standards, the 20-year-old has yet to nail down a place at the season-ending championships in Saudi Arabia.

She has dropped to number six in the WTA Tour rankings after losing in the fourth round of her US Open title defence.

Now in Beijing for the Asian swing, Gauff has some work to do if she is to end her season competing for the WTA Finals crown.

How will Coco Gauff feel if she does not reach the WTA Finals?

Coco Gauff has competed at the last two editions of the WTA Finals and reached the semi-finals for the first time in 2023.

But she is not guaranteed to compete in the 2024 event as it stands. She is currently sixth in the ‘Race to Riyadh’ rankings, 498 points behind US Open runner-up Jessica Pegula.

Only Iga Swiatek and Aryna Sabalenka have booked their places at the WTA Finals so far, but if Gauff did fail to qualify for the event this year, she seems content with that prospect.

“I’ve never felt pressure to make the Finals except the first year when I was trying to make it,” she told WTA Insider.

“This year, it would be great to qualify and experience an organised Finals, but I’m also not trying to put too much pressure because this is a new coaching set-up and I’m adding things. This tournament, we started a pre-season early, in a way.

“So I’m not really thinking about it. If it happens, that’s great. If not, I get an earlier vacation. It’s a win-win. But everybody wants to make the final eight, so that would be cool.”

Can Coco Gauff qualify for the WTA Finals?

The top seven players in the ‘Race to Riyadh’ rankings will qualify for the WTA FInals.

However, eight players compete in the tournament and if a Grand Slam champion sits between positions eight to 20 on the leaderboard, they would take the final spot in the season-ending tournament.

For example, though Barbora Krejcikova is currently in tenth place, she would take the eighth spot in the WTA Finals after winning the Wimbledon Championships in July.

Gauff would have preferred to be higher in the standings, but she still has a good chance of making the WTA Finals, especially if she has a strong Asian swing.

She reached the China Open semi-finals in 2023 and will be looking for a similar result in 2024. Gauff will begin her campaign against France’s Clara Burel.