After a decent Australian Open 2024 campaign, American tennis star Coco Gauff will next play at the Doha WTA 1000 event. The semi-finalist saw her rank jump from No.4 to No.3 after her Top 4 finish at the Majors. She will now look to further rise in the rankings in the upcoming tournaments. Since the Doha WTA 1000 event is still quite a few days away, will she be competing in any other tournaments in between?
At the moment, no one is bigger than Gauff in American tennis circles. She has even been in the news for mentioning about her mysterious boyfriend, which has kept fans guessing after there were strong rumors of her dating Ben Shelton. Gauff likely has big plans for her 2024 schedule, not least of all winning the major Grand Slams.
She had a chance to be the only player after Naomi Osaka to win the US Open and the Australian Open back-to-back. However, she couldn’t do it. However, she successfully defended her WTA 250 title in Auckland this year.
Now, her next destination is Qatar, where several of her fellow competitors will be back competing. It includes Ons Jabeur and Naomi Osaka. Although the Thailand Open and the Linz Open are scheduled before the Doha WTA 1000 event, Gauff’s name is notably missing from the entries. She also said at the Australian Open 2024 press conference after the semifinals that she would be taking a break for a while.
The Qatar TotalEnergies Open 2024 has a prize pool of $3,211,715. Although the breakdown for this year hasn’t officially been announced yet, it is likely to remain the same as last year. The winner gets USD 120,150, followed by USD 74,161 and USD 43,322 for the finalist and semi-finalists respectively. The quarter-finalists will get USD 21,075, and Round 2 and Round 1 will get USD 11,500 and USD 8,310 respectively.
The list of players besides Gauff, Osaka, and Jabeur, will include previous winners Iga Swiatek, Victoria Azarenka, Aryna Sabalenka, Karolina Piliskova, and Elise Mertens. Elena Rybakina will compete and look to improve her ranking, which has now slipped to 5 from 3. Jelena Ostapenko, Barbora Krejcikova, Marketa Vondrousova, Sofia Kenin, and Sloane Stephens form the majority of the confirmed competitors. It will start from February 11 and run till February 17.
Coco Gauff came the closest in the Qatar TotalEnergies Open in 2022 when she made it to the quarterfinals. She beat Shelby Rogers, Carolina Garcia, and Paula Badosa, but lost to 6th seed Maria Sakkari there.
Will Coco Gauff take to the court before the Qatar TotalEnergies Open?
While the Qatar TotalEnergies Open is just in a few days, Coco Gauff might be making yet another appearance before that. The Thailand Open, Ladies Linz, and Transylvania Open are all WTA 250 events, where Gauff might not make an appearance. A WTA 125 event, the Mumbai Open is also scheduled in between. However, Coco Gauff is unlikely to miss the WTA 500 event at Mubadala Abu Dhabi Open.
An Arab News article lists Ons Jabeur as a likely competitor in Abu Dhabi as well. She will also play at the Doha WTA 1000 event. There hasn’t been much information about whether Gauff will play there or not. But looking at other players, it is possible to make it to both tournaments, which are taking place within neck-to-neck of each other.
Gauff played at the Abu Dhabi Open for the first time in 2021 when she was World No. 48. That time too, she lost to Maria Sakkari of Greece. Now given that she is World No.3, there is an argument for the fact that Gauff might just skip the event as well. Mainly because it’s so close to the Qatar Open, and that is a bigger event. In either case, the tennis world must wait for an official announcement from her.
