Miami Open '26: Sabalenka's Still TOO Good! But Gauff’s Game Plan Failed Her

Aryna Sabalenka adds her name to an exclusive group of women after completing the Sunshine Double with a three-set win over Coco Gauff in the Miami Open final. Right now, it still feels like Elena Rybakina is the only player capable of consistently beating the world No. 1. But could a better game plan have given Gauff a real shot at the title?

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Arena Sal Balanca continues to prove that she's simply in a league of her own right now. She's the fifth woman in history to complete the Sunshine Double, winning Indian Wells and Miami back-to-back after earning a 6'2, 4'6, 6'3 victory over Coco Golf in the 305. Right now, Elena Rabakana seems to be the only woman who has truly figured Sal Balanca out as she remains the only player to have beaten the world number one throughout Sal Blanca's first 24 matches of the season. But looking back, could perhaps a different strategy from golf given her a real shot at winning the title? Hello, my name is Christian Bassnot, and welcome to Christian's Court where I cover tennis from all angles. If you have not yet already, make sure you subscribe and click that notification bell so you're notified whenever I post more content, exciting content coming soon. Before I get into the video, I want to thank everyone who joined my live stream of the match and the watch along. Had a great time talking to you all. And special shout out to Mike, Kareem Joe, Mohammed, Alonzo White, Veronica S, and Ashley Deontelli and Tracy Branch for the donations or the super chats. Really means a lot, especially as I travel to Charleston today to cover the Charleston Open 500. Now getting into the match, Sablanka started out really well. She broke golf with ease at 15 in the opening game of the final. And you can tell pretty early on here that the match was going to be different from their previous one in Saudi Arabia. As Sabalenka, she was gonna look to be more aggressive and take advantage of Coco's so-so serving at the start of it. I did say previously that I anticipated Sal Balenka to do a much better job of pressuring Coco's serve compared to Mohova, and she did just that. And early on, Coco didn't go for as many big first serves. She mainly tried to hit a lot of kick and top spin first serves, and Salenka was all on top of them. And I think the ball toss of Coco kind of tossing it behind her back. I even said during the live stream that she's gonna get scoliosis tossing it that far back, but that ball toss made it obvious of what type of serve that she was gonna hit. And Arena was very smart, I think, to direct a good number of her returns deep up the middle to take away the angles from Coco and leave her more vulnerable. Sal Blanca broke Goff twice in the opening set and really almost three times, but Goff saved three break points at 3-1. The American won just 56% of her first serve points compared to Sal Blanca's 79% first serve success rate. And Arena served solid. I think she mixed up her serve a bit more in the opening set compared to the other two. And she still, though, targeted the Coco forehand return a lot, especially on that due side. Coco just was not able to do as much with that return or change up the placement of her returns. She typically returned it short-ish up the middle for South Linka to kind of finish it strong with the backhand cross court for either the clean winner or just drawing an error from Coco with her being so out of position. And quite a few times, she got the netted backhand on the run from golf. And I think on those shots, Coco should have sliced them more or just did something, tried to hit with more net clearance because when you hit a backhand drive on the run, as well as with Sal Balenka hitting with so much pace, it's so hard to get actual good net clearance. So, again, maybe a slice would have been much better. I think Coco can improve her variety on that particular shot, and that could have maybe did a lot to turn the match in her favor. In addition to Arena's backhand cross-court shot, I think the forehand down the line where she changed directions was a crucial shot for her in this final. And it's been an important shot for her this entire tournament, but she used it well to draw some more of those golf backhand on-the-run airs, too, or just clean winners. The second set, I felt like both women really had opportunities to take it rather convincingly. Coco served much better in the second set compared to the first, as she won nearly 20% more points behind her first serve. She went after the serve a bit more, and I think early on she was smart to go body before she got her rhythm and was able to then hit her spots better as the set progressed. I also think the stronger serving enabled Coco to improve her core positioning behind her service games so that she could take it to Sabalenka more. She began playing the tennis that actually got her to the final because, as you can see here, her core positioning was pretty far back in the early part of the final compared to Sabalenka. And that's not the way you want to play Arena, especially on a hard court. And she was able to get away with this more during the US Open Final because Sabalenka's transition game uh wasn't as strong, but she's improved a lot in that regard since 2023. In set number two, Coco made a concerted effort to use more depth and more weight of shot behind her forehand, especially. She got her body weight going forward more and she was able to get Sablenka on the move a lot more in the second set. And she did a great job to hold on to her serve throughout the second set and not get broken because she faced two break points, one at two all and then one at three all. And Sablenka's returning was still pretty high as far as her level of returning in the second set. The main issue with Coco in this final, I feel, wasn't her serve. She finished with seven double faults, not bad in a three-set match, and she had just four double faults combined in the final two sets, which is great for Coco. The main problem with golf was her return. I was really just so baffled by Coco's return strategy because she consistently returned from the parking lot of Hard Rock Stadium. Like, what are you doing down there? Why are you down there? And this was on both the first and second serves, and it's understandable why Coco took a deeper return positioning on the first serve because Sabalenka was serving big, but from this far back on her second serve, that was clearly a losing play, and she was not able to get enough on her return to actually keep Sabalenka from running her all around the court. It just didn't really make sense. Only a couple times she actually stepped up and took the return on the rise, and whenever she did it, she had more success. I think Coco's coaching team, maybe John Christophe Pharrell, to be exact, they need to step it up because there's no way I'd keep watching my player keep getting beat the same way, time after time after time. And speaking of which, I think Coco gave Arena too much space to hit the slice wide serve on the due side, especially on the second serve. I would have taken that serve away from Arena and stood both closer to the baseline and more to my right to cut off that wide serve and just make Sal Blanca beat me with the serve up the T to my better wing, the backhand. Then say if you're Coco and Salanka still goes to your forehand on the serves in the second serves, still gotta be more aggressive behind your return. Simple as that. I think Coco should have gone cross-court forehand with that return more like she did here instead of going more up the middle. I think also Coco should have broken Salenka more than just the one time she did. Again, Salinka served well, but there were a few return games in the second set where she let Arena off the hook. Especially that one love game where she had her first break point, just too many errors. And I think that's ultimately what hurt Coco in the latter part of the match, just too many errors that she shouldn't have made. The one game where Coco did break Sabalenka to take the second set was more about Sabalenka's backhand breaking down, as all four of the points she lost that game were from backhand errors. Arena, though, deserves major props for cleaning up that wing in the final set because that shot helped her get a crucial break to open up the decider. I think that first game of the third set was huge. And I think it might have decided the match because I think if Golf held served, she might have continued carrying the momentum into the third set and might have broken Sal Blanca early on in the decider. Goff only hit two double faults in set number three, but both of them came in the opening service game of that final set for her. So those are the thin margins here that separate the finalists from the champions. Simple as that. Coco held pretty comfortably after dropping serve in that opening game of the decider, at least until the final game where she was broken to lose the match. But back to Goff's returning, Sablanka lost just four points behind her serve and the decider. And that's very surprising because I thought Goff would at least generate another breakpoint opportunity for herself in this third set and would pressure Arena more. Once again, Sablanka's serve was very solid, but Coco simply missed far too many returns, just way too many. And at one point it got ridiculous because many of these serves didn't have a bunch of pace, or not many, but some of these serves didn't have a bunch of pace on them, or they weren't placed all that well. Coco simply flopped. And maybe the nerves of trying to win this title got to her, or it could be the tendency for her to kind of be error-prone behind her return, especially on the forehand as the matches wear on. But that's something she's gotta fix because we often talk about golf serve and how important it is. But to me, the return is equally as important in determining a lot of her success. Nonetheless, very impressed by Sabalenka. I said in my prediction video that she needed to win this match in two sets because I felt that if it went three, Coco would be favored as she was far more battle tested and she was in this position many times in this tournament. She had to win four three-set matches before the semifinals. So for Sal Balenka to come out on top, especially it's been a minute since she was pushed to three sets. Her last three-set match was ending wells. She hadn't dropped a set this tournament thus far. So again, very, very impressed. And she found another gear and just turned it around. And I think once again, the reason why I have such admiration for Salanka is her ability to learn from previous losses. I think her a year ago, thinking back to the US Open in 2023 or the Rolling Garros finals from 2025, she would have lost that match because this match gave the same vibes of that, of that Salanka was kind of dominating or did well in the first set and had an opportunity to maybe take it in straight sets. But then Coco, you know, took advantage of Salanka's drop in play and took the second set. And normally golf would ride out the momentum, but Salenka stopped it soon on and did well to come through in the end. And that's exactly why she's the number one. I also think Arena might have been motivated by that woman shouting out on one of her shots in the third set, as she yelled, shut up after the point, but she later apologized to that woman in the crowd. Speaking of which, the crowd was kind of a bit too unruly. I think it's good to be energetic, like not between the points, but between the points and during some of the shots, they were kind of shouting a little bit too much, and it was a little bit too too disrespectful to both players. And it got to the point where the umpire had to step in multiple times. So maybe they put a little bit too much alcohol in some of those beverages. The tournament did. But more on Sabalenka, I think it's interesting how fast things have changed. Because I remember previewing the Indian Wells Finals, I said Sabalenka has got to win this. Because if she doesn't, and then Rabakana, I think, will be head and shoulders clearly the best player in the world right now, even though Sabalenka still would have held the number one spot. But now Sabalenka, she's kind of the clear head and shoulders best player in the world. And yes, Ravakana wasn't quite on her game in that semifinal and maybe was dealing with something physically, but still she won the match and she won that Indian Wells final and she got the Sunshine Double. So she she really is the best. And I'm glad she got the Sunshine Double because she came very close last year, losing finals of Indian Wells, but ultimately winning Miami. And it puts her in rarefied air now. She's the first woman since I in 2022 to do it, and she's also the second Belarusian after Vika did it 10 years ago. Gotta give her props too because she said before that Indian Wells final that she really wanted to improve her finals record in the big finals. And now she's won back-to-back big finals. Can't remember the last time she's done something like that. So big props for Sabalenka. And she's playing outstanding tennis this year. She honestly deserves multiple slam titles with this level. And I think it's going to be an important win for her, especially with the clay season coming up and her having to defend points in Madrid and the Roland Garrett's finals. Same thing for Coco, who returns to number three in the world after this finals run. I think this was an important tournament for her to help ease her nerves and the pressure because she's defending a lot of points for the clay season as well. Finals in Madrid and Rome and winner at Roland Garros. That's a lot. And yes, this snaps her streak of winning, I believe, nine straight hardcourt finals in a row, but she'll take it. This run wasn't expected. I think Coco herself would tell you that. She was close to not even playing this tournament considering her arm injury from Indian Wells. And her season overall before Miami wasn't quite the best. Yes, she had that Dubai semifinal, but I remember talking with my friend and being like, man, like, why does Coco keep running to these same issues of struggling a little bit in the earlier part of the season before she turns it around during the Sunshine Double? But now she's had two good, great results to start the season. Again, Dubai and now Miami. So huge growth steps for Coco. Aside from the results, I think it's growth. She showed a lot of growth in her game. Mainly with the serve. She didn't serve a whole lot of double faults in these last few matches. Then also her aggression, too. I think she should have came forward a little bit more in this final against Arena. I understand that with Salenka's power, it was gonna be a tougher ask, but still, I think she needs to incorporate more net play even on the clay. Very curious to see how this tournament might shape out her clay season. I think the confidence she got from this finals run will help her, and I think it'll be another successful clay run for golf, as it will probably with Salenka. But speaking of just the golf and Salenka rivalry aspect of it, it's their 13th meeting. Salenka now takes the edge, 7-6. And really to me, this is the most compelling rivalry on the women's tour. And when I say most compelling, it's like people get up when these two play. Like that's why I did the live because I'm like, this is a really compet compelling like match, just the dynamics of it. And these two just always entertain. You never know what to really expect with their game styles, their contrasting game styles. And then aside from that, the fans get really passionate on both ends. Both fans get nasty, and I wish they wouldn't get so nasty sometimes, but I mean, I guess part of that is what makes sports so great, the passion behind it. But one thing though, I do think the mash quality of golf Sabalinka isn't the best compared to other rivalries like a Sabalenka Rabacana or even a Sabalenka Bagula. You don't often see these two playing their best tennis at the same time. I think Miami was their second highest quality match after the 2024 Australian open semi-finals, which Sabalenka won in straight sets. I think though we're definitely long, long overdue for a Robocana golf match. I think that will for sure feed the streets. Hopefully, we can get it sometime during the clay swing. But that is all I have for my Miami Open women's final recap. Let me know in the comments your thoughts on the finals and if you agree with my analysis. And feel free to share some things that you felt that both women could have done better in this match. Also, let me know your favorite Miami match of this tournament. I think Sablanka Golf is definitely among my favorites, as well as Golf Benchic. Rabakinapagula was also good, as well as Austral Paulini. But again, make sure you subscribe and click that notification bell so you're notified whenever I post content coming up from my time covering the Charleston Open. Thank you all so much for watching and for your support, and I will see you next time here on Christian's Court.