For the first time in seven years, the best two women’s players in the world will meet in a Grand Slam final when Aryna Sabalenka and Coco Gauff face off at the French Open.
A new women’s singles champion will be crowned either way, with world number one Sabalenka seeking a fourth major singles title and second-ranked Gauff a second.
Gauff, the US Open champion in 2023, finished runner-up in Paris three years ago, while two-time Australian Open winner and last year’s New York champion Sabalenka is in a first Roland Garros final.
The pair have five wins apiece from 10 previous meetings before going head-to-head on Court Philippe Chatrier, where the winner will take home 2.5m euros (£2.1m) and 2,000 ranking points.
Sabalenka and Gauff overcame two very different challenges in their respective semi-finals.
Underlining her position as title favourite, Sabalenka ended four-time champion Iga Swiatek’s 26-match run with an impressive three-set victory.
Gauff, meanwhile, was up against a partisan crowd but efficiently ended French wildcard Lois Boisson’s fairytale run in straight sets.
Sabalenka continues to show remarkable consistency at the sport’s highest level, with this her third successive major singles final.
The 27-year-old is the first woman to achieve that feat since the great Serena Williams nine years ago.
Sabalenka has competed in 10 tournaments this year, reaching seven finals, and she leads the WTA Tour with 40 wins in 46 matches.
Gauff, meanwhile, continues to emerge as a force to be reckoned with on clay.
The 21-year-old, bidding for her first title of the season, is the youngest woman to reach the finals at Madrid, Rome and the French Open in the same year.
With her run to the Roland Garros final, she has also become the youngest player to amass 70 wins at Grand Slam tournaments since Maria Sharapova in 2007.
Where will French Open women’s final be won and lost?
There is nothing to split Sabalenka and Gauff in the overall head-to-head record.
They each have one win at the majors, with Gauff defeating Sabalenka in the 2023 US Open final before Sabalenka took revenge in their Australian Open semi-final in 2024.
Both have a win each on clay, with Gauff prevailing in the Italian Open fourth round in 2021 and Sabalenka claiming a straight-set win in their most recent meeting in the Madrid final.
That victory in May perhaps gives Sabalenka a slight edge in Paris, given she has won three of their past four meetings.
But with half of their encounters going the distance – and both players losing just one set in their six matches so far – expectations are high for Saturday’s showpiece.
Known for her brutal hitting, Sabalenka has been typecast as a hard-court specialist throughout her career, with all three of her major singles titles won on that surface.
But she is ever adapting her game. Against Swiatek, she kept the key points short and stifled the clay-court expert’s game with devastating accuracy.
Asked how it would feel to win the French Open, Sabalenka said: “It’s going to mean everything to me and my team.
“Almost [my] whole life I’ve been told [clay] is not my thing and then I didn’t have any confidence.
“If I’ll be able to get this trophy, it’s going to mean the world for us.”
Gauff knows what to expect from Sabalenka – but overcoming that challenge is a different matter.
She will have to be at her best defensively to withstand Sabalenka’s power and try to draw her into longer rallies.
Holding her serve and keeping double faults to a minimum will be key to keeping pressure on Sabalenka and supply a platform for creating opportunities to build on her tournament-leading tally of converted break points (40).
“She’s going to come out aggressive, she’s going to come out swinging,” Gauff said.
“I think I just have to expect that and do my best to kind of counter that.
“Anything can happen on Saturday. I’m looking forward to it, and I’m glad to be going up against a world number one, too.”
Later on Saturday, British pair Joe Salisbury and Neal Skupski contest the French Open men’s doubles final against Spain’s Marcel Granollers and Argentina’s Horacio Zeballos.
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