Coco Gauff was just celebrating her first title of the season in Cincinnati and soon after she was defending it online. After beating Jessica Pegula 6-2, 6-4 in the final, footage of Gauff FaceTiming her family to share the moment went viral, only for one critic to complain on X.

“Kinda hate how after the match the players immediately just bring their phones out… like omg live a little,” they wrote, but deleted the post a few minutes later. 

“God forbid a girl facetimes her family to share the moment with them,” she wrote back, not letting the comment go unanswered.

Gauff has a really close relationship with her family, and to celebrate her redemption arc by lifting the Cincinnati Open, she called her parents and brothers who were unable to make it to the match.

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The moment capped a genuinely dominant week for Gauff, who beat Pegula in an all-American final. For the first time at this tournament in 56 years, two American women met in a Cincinnati final. 

Gauff raced to a 5-0 lead within 30 minutes and closed out the first set 6-2, holding on in a more competitive second set, winning it 6-4, to finish the game in one hour and 14 minutes. She won 65 percent of her first-serve points to Pegula’s 47 percent and converted five of six break points. 

It marked Gauff’s first title of the season and her fourth career WTA 1000 crown, and she dropped just one set across the entire tournament, in her opening match against Liudmila Samsonova, before winning 12 straight sets to the title.

“I think it was a long journey, but I’m happy. I think it’s night and day, the player I was last year to now,” she said in her title-winning speech, and then added candidly, “Last year, I was just frustrated with my game and I felt like I was declining. It’s not something any player wants to feel.” 

Back in 2025, Gauff finished the season with 48 wins in total and 16 losses to match that. Those losses included back-to-back defeats at WTA 1000 finals on clay, falling to Aryna Sabalenka in Madrid and then to Jasmine Paolini in Rome, both in straight sets. She eventually capped off her clay season with the French Open title, defeating Sabalenka in three sets. 

The world No. 4 now sits at 40-13 for 2026, and has reached three WTA 1000 finals, runner-up finishes in Miami and Rome before finally closing one out in Cincinnati. The win over Pegula marked her 40th win of the season already and her first title of the year after a stretch that had repeatedly seen her fall just short in the biggest matches. 

“I don’t think that this is an indicator that I’m going to do well in New York. Just knowing the quality wins that I had this week, hopefully I can use that experience,” Gauff stated.

The last time Gauff won this exact title, in 2023, she went on to win her maiden Grand Slam at the US Open weeks later. Can she do it again?