Coco Gauff survived Aryna Sabalenka, and a frantic test of patience and resilience, to win Roland Garros

“As soon as I stepped on the court, I could feel that it was windy, and it was gonna be one of those matches,” Coco Gauff said after her riveting, rough and tumble, emotion-jammed 6-7 (5), 6-2, 6-4 win over Aryna Sabalenka in the Roland Garros final.

The wind swirled through Court Philippe Chartier and kicked red clay into the players’ eyes. The air was misty and rain was a constant threat. The roof was always on the verge of being closed. But this is an outdoor tournament, which means that dealing with the elements comes with the territory.

While those elements kept this final from being of thing of beauty, they also turned it into a deep test of hearts and minds, a desperate scrap filled with service breaks, loud grunts, wild errors and building frustrations, where patience and resilience were more important than the beauty of your technique. The world’s No. 1 ranked player wasn’t as ready, or perhaps as equipped, for it as the world’s No. 2.

“I was just trying to give myself the best chance to fight every point,” Gauff said of her mentality as she felt the wind whip around her. “I knew it was just going to be about willpower and mental.”

At first, it looked as if Gauff wouldn’t get a chance to fight, because Sabalenka was going to knock her out in record time. The top seed came out mixing haymakers with feints and jabs, and showing off the finesse she has learned over time. She broke with a deftly blocked forehand volley, and broke again with a ripped forehand return and a roar. Sabalenka led 4-1, 40-0.

“It was so hard to hit the ball and get it through the court,” Gauff said. “Then the other side, if you didn’t accelerate, it would fly…I felt my timing was so off in the beginning.”

Two years ago in the US Open final, Sabalenka also jumped out to an early lead, before Gauff made her hit so many balls that she eventually imploded—and left her decimated racquet in a locker-room trash bin.

That process began to repeat itself in the fifth game on Saturday. Sabalenka gave Gauff her first opening when she double-faulted to deuce, and Coco took advantage with a forehand winner and a forcing backhand. She broke, held at love, and saved two set points with Sabalenka serving at 5-4. Now it was Gauff who was changing speeds, mixing in slice forehands, making the 6-foot Sabalenka bend and twist and catch the ball late.

“It was more windy, got more windy,” Sabalenka said when she was asked what happened at 4-1. “I think I was overemotional. I think today I didn’t really handle myself quite well mentally…I was just making unforced errors.”

Sabalenka went from a double-break up to trailing 3-5 in the tiebreaker. Suddenly, though, she found her game again for four points—she hit a backhand return winner, a backhand winner that skidded off the sideline, a volley winner, and, at set point, a drop-volley winner.

Was it a case of Sabalenka needing to fall behind to play well? Had she grabbed the momentum back for good?

Neither, it turned out. Instead of building off those four winners, Sabalenka’s game stalled again, while Gauff plowed ahead, seemingly unbothered. Sabalenka spent most of the second set staring up at her team in disbelief, as the ball continued to sail on her. Just as in New York two years ago, the crowd was firmly in Gauff’s camp.

“It felt like a joke, honestly, like somebody from above was just staying there laughing, like, let’s see if you can handle this,” Sabalenka said.

Again, Sabalenka seemed to gather herself to start the third set, holding quickly and closing the game with an upbeat “Come on!” But again, that moment of positivity passed quickly. For the next five games, the two traded breaks, mistakes and double faults as the rain picked up. Gauff seemed too nervous to hit over her forehand, but Sabalenka was too erratic to make her pay for it.

At 3-3, Gauff broke with a confident backhand, and held for 5-3 by using a bigger kick on her second serve that Sabalenka couldn’t handle. Finally, it was buckle-up time as Gauff served for the title at 5-4. She fell behind 15-30, but again found a winning serve, this time with a 115-m.p.h heater that cut through the wind.

The final point was fittingly off-kilter and disrupted by the elements. Gauff sent up a forehand that looped high and looked as if it was going long, only to have the wind bring it back in and surprise Sabalenka. Two shots later, Sabalenka wasn’t so lucky, as the breeze seemed to catch her backhand and take it a couple inches wide of the sideline.

Afterward, Gauff sounded like she had been channeling the tennis-isn’t-everything life philosophy of Alexander Bublik.

“After I lost the first set, I told myself, like, I’ll just give it my all, and if I lose this match, then at least I can say I gave it all out there, and I’ll go and go home and get to see my boyfriend and everything like that,” she said.

But if she looked calmer than Sabalenka on the outside, that wasn’t true on the inside.

“Especially in the last game I was definitely freaking out,” Gauff said. “I was feeling it, but I was just trying to breathe and get through them and just remember my fundamentals.”

Today was a day for surviving more than thriving, and Gauff proved again how far you can go in this game on fight.

“That’s something I’m really proud of, just managing to get another ball back, and play with the conditions,” she said.

Gauff played with those conditions, while Sabalenka fought against them. It was technically an upset, but the winner really wasn’t a surprise at all.