Editor’s note: Coverage was delayed because of an outage affecting our hosting provider in Phoenix.
Search the highlight reels from this one, and you’ll mostly find Coco Gauff winning all the points. That’s what happens when the WTA is all about promotion and not enough about the real tennis happening on the court. So here is our report to tell you what really happened.
Gauff looked tense from the start. Mysteriously so.
Rybakina beat Gauff 5-7, 6-2, 6-2 to reach the Toronto final. The real story of the evening belongs to her, not the player who took the opening set.
Gauff never looked completely comfortable even while she was ahead. Once Rybakina found her range on serve, there was no getting it back.
A Set Decided by a Single Break, and Nothing Else
Eleven straight service games went by without a single break of serve. Then came the twelfth.
Gauff held to open.
Rybakina leveled.
From there, the two traded holds all the way to 6-5. Neither player faced so much as a sniff of a break point through that entire stretch. It was game after game of clean, high-quality serving on both sides of the net.
Then, serving to stay in the set at 5-6, Rybakina finally cracked. Gauff broke through to close it out 7-5. That was the only moment in the entire opening set where either player’s serve actually failed her.
Gauff vs Rybakina – Key Set 1 Stats
- Gauff won 75% of pressure points (6/8) compared with Rybakina’s 25% (2/8).
- Gauff won her service games at a perfect 100% (6/6), while Rybakina fell to 83% (5/6).
- Gauff edged the total points battle 36-34, despite committing 21 unforced errors to Rybakina’s 26.
Full Set 1 Stats
| Gauff | Statistic | Rybakina |
|---|---|---|
| Set 1 Duration: 0h45m | ||
| 0.99 | Dominance Ratio | 1.01 |
| 4 | Winners | 5 |
| 21 | Unforced Errors | 26 |
| 298 | Serve Rating | 281 |
| 1 | Aces | 2 |
| 1 | Double Faults | 1 |
| 61% (23/38) | 1st Serve % | 63% (20/32) |
| 74% (17/23) | 1st Serve Points Won | 80% (16/20) |
| 63% (10/16) | 2nd Serve Points Won | 58% (7/12) |
| 100% (3/3) | Break Points Saved | 50% (1/2) |
| 129 | Return Rating | 64 |
| 20% (4/20) | 1st Return Points Won | 26% (6/23) |
| 42% (5/12) | 2nd Return Points Won | 38% (6/16) |
| 1/2 | Break Points Won | 0/3 |
| 36 | Total Points Won | 34 |
It was a clean, high-quality set decided by the smallest possible margin. Gauff had won it. She still didn’t look settled doing it. The manner of that final game gave little indication of what was about to follow, and the two sets that came after it made that clear fast.
Rybakina Finds Another Gear, and Gauff Has No Answer
Whatever had kept the first set even disappeared almost immediately once the second began.
Gauff held to open. Rybakina leveled. Gauff held again to lead 2-1. That was the last comfortable moment she’d have all set.
Rybakina broke to go to 3-2. She held to move ahead 4-2, then broke a second time to push out to 5-2. She served out the set 6-2, needing just eight games to completely reverse the shape of the match.
Gauff vs Rybakina – Key Set 2 Stats
- Rybakina won her service games at a perfect 100% (4/4), while Gauff dropped to 50% (2/4).
- Rybakina won 61% of total points (31/51) compared with Gauff’s 39% (20/51).
- Rybakina converted both her break points (2/2), while Gauff failed to convert any (0/0) and won zero return games (0/4).
Full Set 2 Stats
| Gauff | Statistic | Rybakina |
|---|---|---|
| Set 2 Duration: 0h37m | ||
| 0.53 | Dominance Ratio | 1.90 |
| 6 | Winners | 5 |
| 23 | Unforced Errors | 13 |
| 224 | Serve Rating | 285 |
| 1 | Aces | 0 |
| 2 | Double Faults | 0 |
| 76% (22/29) | 1st Serve % | 50% (11/22) |
| 55% (12/22) | 1st Serve Points Won | 64% (7/11) |
| 44% (4/9) | 2nd Serve Points Won | 71% (10/14) |
| 0% (0/2) | Break Points Saved | – (0/0) |
| 65 | Return Rating | 251 |
| 36% (4/11) | 1st Return Points Won | 45% (10/22) |
| 29% (4/14) | 2nd Return Points Won | 56% (5/9) |
| – (0/0) | Break Points Won | 2/2 |
| 20 | Total Points Won | 31 |
Set one had been a serving contest with almost no separation between the two players. Set two belonged entirely to Rybakina’s side of the net, start to finish. Gauff’s forehand troubles only seemed to grow as it wore on, compounding a set that had gotten away from her almost as soon as it started, with little sign of a way back into it at any point.
The Third Set Repeats the Second, Point for Point
The third set followed almost the exact same script, right down to the score.
Gauff held to open. Rybakina leveled. Gauff held again to lead 2-1, the same pattern repeating itself almost point for point from the set before.
Rybakina broke back to level at 2-2, held for 3-2, then broke again to move ahead 5-2. She served out the match 6-2.
Gauff simply had no response to the version of Rybakina that had shown up once the opening set was gone. There was no third escape act coming this time, and both players seemed to know it well before the final point arrived, the outcome feeling settled several games before it was technically confirmed.
Key Set 3 Stats
- Rybakina won her service games at a perfect 100% (4/4), while Gauff dropped to 50% (2/4).
- Rybakina hit 14 winners to Gauff’s 7, while committing fewer unforced errors, 10 to Gauff’s 17.
- Rybakina won 58% of total points (33/57) compared with Gauff’s 44% (25/57), and won 50% of her return games (2/4) to Gauff’s 0% (0/4).
Full Set 3 Stats
| Gauff | Statistic | Rybakina |
|---|---|---|
| Set 3 Duration: 0h40m | ||
| 0.69 | Dominance Ratio | 1.44 |
| 7 | Winners | 14 |
| 17 | Unforced Errors | 10 |
| 211 | Serve Rating | 307 |
| 2 | Aces | 3 |
| 3 | Double Faults | 0 |
| 71% (22/31) | 1st Serve % | 73% (19/26) |
| 68% (15/22) | 1st Serve Points Won | 68% (13/19) |
| 23% (3/13) | 2nd Serve Points Won | 63% (5/8) |
| 67% (4/6) | Break Points Saved | 100% (2/2) |
| 70 | Return Rating | 192 |
| 32% (6/19) | 1st Return Points Won | 32% (7/22) |
| 38% (3/8) | 2nd Return Points Won | 77% (10/13) |
| 0/2 | Break Points Won | 2/6 |
| 25 | Total Points Won | 33 |
The Numbers Explain Exactly Why Gauff Couldn’t Find a Way Back
Rybakina’s serve rating of 289 to Gauff’s 231 tells most of the story. The break point count tells the sharpest version of it.
Rybakina faced only 4 break points in the entire match, and saved 3 of them.
Gauff, by contrast, faced 11 and lost 4. That single number, more than the winners count or the dominance ratio, explains why an even, high-quality contest turned into a rout for two full sets.
Rybakina’s serve simply stopped giving Gauff anything to work with. Once that happened, the return numbers followed everywhere else. Gauff won only one of Rybakina’s return games across the whole match, a single game out of fourteen tries, a figure that leaves almost no room for a different read on how this one actually played out, whatever the highlight package ends up showing.
The Forehand Issue Both Players Shared, and Only One Could Overcome
Gauff’s defending held up. Her serve was solid enough for long stretches.
Her forehand, though, was consistently off, and she never really fixed it. It cost her chances she would normally expect to convert against most opponents on tour.
As the match wore on, the shot never showed real signs of correcting itself.
Rybakina had the same problem for much of the match. The difference was what she had to fall back on.
By her recent Toronto standards, this was the best she had served all tournament. It was comfortably better than in any of her previous matches during this Canadian swing.
That gave Rybakina a margin for error Gauff simply did not have.
When both players are missing forehands at a similar rate, the player with the bigger serve usually wins the tiebreaks that count, even when neither is playing especially clean tennis.
Rybakina Gets Her Reward: A Final Against a Rejuvenated Swiatek
Rybakina moves through to the Toronto final, where Iga Swiatek is waiting after completing her own comeback from a set down against Elina Svitolina.
It’s a matchup between two players trending in opposite directions for very different reasons. Rybakina has spent this season chasing consistency between moments of real brilliance. Swiatek has spent it clawing back from her worst stretch in years.
Both storylines now collide in the same final.
Gauff, meanwhile, leaves Toronto with a first set that suggested she belonged in this match. The two sets that followed made clear she couldn’t sustain it once Rybakina’s serve turned up.