Coco Gauff captured her first doubles title in over a year and then hilariously remarked that her "temporary return" to doubles was instant success.
After disappointingly seeing her Montreal singles campaign end in the round-of-16, the American stayed in Canada because she still had doubles going on with fellow American McCartney Kessler. In their first appearance as a pair, the American duo won a total of five matches and impressively beat No. 3 seeds Taylor Townsend and Zhang Shuai 6-4 1-6 13-11 in the final.
For Gauff, this was her third doubles tournament of the year. Previously, the American teamed up with Robin Montgomery in Madrid and with Alexandra Eala in Rome, respectively. The 21-year-old now has 10 doubles titles in her collection.
"Lol temporarily came out of doubles retirement and got a dub!" the top-ranked American female tennis player wrote on her Instagram Story.
Coco Gauff Instagram Story© Coco Gauff/Instagram – Fair Use
Gauff enjoyed big success with Jessica Pegula but they stopped playing together
Across the 2022 and 2023 seasons, Gauff and Pegula were one of the top teams on the WTA Tour and they won a total of five doubles titles during that period and were also finalists at the 2022 French Open.
Going into the 2024 Paris Olympics, their goal was to capture the gold medal – or at least win any medal. But those hopes were quickly squashed after they picked up a surprise round-of-16 loss to Karolina Muchova and Linda Noskova.
Since then, Gauff and Pegula haven't played together. Earlier this year, Pegula insisted everything was fine between the two but they simply stopped playing doubles because they wanted to focus on singles.
"Coco and I played so much for a couple years there. We did great. A lot of really amazing results and memories. At the same time doing well in the singles court, we obviously didn't want to play as much anymore. The schedule just gets really, really tough. I've barely played this year, probably won't play any of the Grand Slams this year," the 31-year-old explained.
