Coco Gauff called the WTA Finals qualification scenarios “kinda stupid” and said the format “has to change”. Her former coach Brad Gilbert and Andrea Petkovic heard the same permutations and found them the best thing about the event, while Madison Keys suggests a shorter 2027 tournament will force a rethink anyway.
Gauff’s frustration
Gauff opened her week in Indian Wells with a three-set win over Jessica Pegula, then won only six games in a 6-3, 6-3 defeat by Linda Noskova on Tuesday. Noskova’s win sent the Czech through to the semi-finals, and Pegula’s straight-sets victory over Marta Kostyuk left Gauff in an awkward spot: if Pegula beats Noskova in the final round of group matches, Gauff goes out whatever she does against Kostyuk.
Asked whether she would study the permutations, Gauff laughed them off. “The scenarios — I mean, I know they make sense, but they’re kinda stupid (laughs),” she said in her post-match press conference, as reported by Tennis365. “If I win my match and I still don’t qualify, I’m like, ‘It’s okay, it’s cool.'” Then came the hint: “I’m looking forward to next year. I can’t say much, but everybody knows it has to change.”
Gilbert and Petkovic: “that’s what is so beautiful”
On The Big T Podcast, Gilbert, who coached Gauff to the 2023 US Open title, and Petkovic, the former top-10 player, took the opposite view. Gilbert set up the discussion by noting that Gauff no longer controlled her own path to the semi-finals. Petkovic pointed out that a set here or there would have changed everything, and Gilbert recalled that Gauff had held a match point in the second set against Pegula.
For Petkovic, that is the appeal rather than the flaw. “Oh, if she had won in straights, oh my god! You see, that’s what is so beautiful about the group stages. We have them so rarely in tennis but looking back at them, it could be that one point that makes the difference,” she said, in the exchange reported by Tennis365.
Gilbert went further and argued for more round-robin tennis, not less. “We have gone to these crazy 12-day tournaments at all these Masters; I actually would like to see at least one of them be this format,” he said. Petkovic agreed, describing the misery of packing for a two-week event and losing in the first round: under a group format, nobody goes home after one bad day.
Keys: “the worst-kept secret on the tour”
Madison Keys, working on the television coverage, sided with the view that change is coming, and offered a practical reason. “I think that might be the worst-kept secret on the tour. We have fewer days next year,” she said, in comments reported by Tennis Uptodate. “Only five days. So something has to change.”
That fits the calendar. This year’s Finals are in Indian Wells for one year only. From 2027 the event moves to Charlotte, where it is scheduled for 10 to 14 November at the Spectrum Center. A round-robin of eight players, followed by semi-finals and a final, is difficult to fit into five days. The WTA has not announced what format it will use.
Who has the better argument?
Both camps are describing the same feature. A round-robin rewards consistency across three matches and punishes a single flat performance less than a knockout does. The price is complexity: when three players finish on two wins, places come down to sets and games, and a player can win her last match and still be eliminated. Gauff’s complaint is the player’s view of that price. Petkovic’s praise is the viewer’s view of the drama it creates.
Gilbert’s suggestion of a round-robin Masters 1000 is the boldest idea in the debate, and the least likely to happen soon; the logistics of group stages for a full Masters draw would be formidable. But his wider point about the 12-day Masters events chimes with the wider unease among top players this autumn about the length of the season.
Keys’s contribution may settle it in practice. If the 2027 event really has only five days, the WTA will need a leaner structure, whatever anyone thinks of the drama. Gauff’s “I can’t say much” hints that players have some idea of what is coming. The question for Charlotte is whether the WTA finds a way to keep the group-stage tension Petkovic loves without the arithmetic Gauff hates.
For the event itself, read how the Indian Wells format works, and for the calendar row on the men’s side, see Alcaraz and Zverev on the schedule.
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