It came down to the wire, but Coco Gauff pulled off an incredible comeback at the Riyadh WTA Finals presented by PIF on Saturday, earning the American the first year-end championship title of her career.

WTA Riyadh Finals: Heaps | Classification

No. 3 seed Gauff beat No. 7 Zheng Qinwen of China 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (2) in a 3 hour, 4 minute final to clinch the Billie Jean King Trophy and the ninth of his career. Hologic WTA Tour individual title. This is the longest WTA Finals final since time statistics began to be recorded in 2008.

In her third consecutive WTA Finals appearance, Gauff needed to overcome multiple deficits to prevail over Zheng. Gauff had to come back from a break in the second set, and was down twice in the third set, where Zheng served for the match at 5-4.

Reminiscent of her run to the 2023 US Open title (where she came back from a set down in three matches), Gauff used her courage to fight back on each of those occasions.

Gauff will be rewarded $4,805,000 for her week in Riyadh, the largest payout in a Hologic WTA Tour event. The American has also secured the world No. 3 ranking at the end of the season for the second year in a row.

Strong season endings: Gauff capped a late-season surge with the victory Saturday. After a round of 16 loss in her US Open title defense, Gauff bounced back tremendously, winning 12 of her last 14 matches this year.

Zheng also finished the season in good shape. Since Wimbledon, this year’s Olympic gold medalist Zheng has posted a 31-6 win-loss record, leading the tour in matches won during that period.

But it was Gauff who came into the championship match with a nearly flawless record in the finals, and the American continues to excel when she gets to that stage, especially on hard courts.

By winning the Beijing hard-court title last month, Gauff became the first woman in the Open Era to win her first seven hard-court finals at tour level. Gauff has now extended his final hard court record to 8-0, and improves to 9-1 in overall finals at the tour level.

Quick Facts: With Gauff, 20, and Zheng, 22, facing off in the championship match, Riyadh had the youngest combined age of singles finalists at the WTA Finals since Maria Sharapova defeated Serena Williams in the final. 2004. Gauff is now the youngest WTA Finals champion since a 17-year-old Sharapova took the title 20 years ago.

Since the WTA Finals began in 1972, Gauff is the fourth American to win the WTA Finals before turning 21, joining Chris Evert (1972, 1973 and 1975), Tracy Austin (1980) and Serena Williams (2001).

Also this week, Gauff becomes the second American since 1990 to record four Top 10 wins in a single event before turning 21. Lindsay Davenport accomplished that feat for the first time en route to the gold medal at the 1996 Olympics.

Key moments: Zheng took command in the first set using strong, deep shots to break Gauff 5-3. Zheng survived a break point while taking a one-set lead: Gauff went 0-for-5 on break points in the first match.

However, in the second set, Gauff found the aggressive return game that has led her to become this year’s leader in percentage of return games and return points won. From 3-1 down, Gauff broke Zheng three times in a row to capture the second set and level the match.

In the unpredictable third set, Gauff again rallied from an early break, but Zheng regained the advantage and served for the match at 5-4. However, Gauff used deep shots to provoke errors from Zheng, and the American broke to lead 5-5 without facing even a match point.

Gauff earned two match points on Zheng’s serve at 6-5, but the Chinese player held firm and lined up the third set tiebreaker. Gauff refused to give in and took a 6-0 lead into the break, eventually converting her fifth match point to seal the victory in Saudi Arabia.

More to come…