Coco Gauff WTA Finals 2026 Martina Navratilova advice, Digi Mart USA News (Indian Wells): Tennis great Martina Navratilova has urged Coco Gauff to be more aggressive and to come to the net more frequently ahead of her campaign at the WTA Finals.
World No. 4 Gauff is the fourth seed at the year-end championships and will open against compatriot Jessica Pegula on Sunday night. Her match follows the opening contest between Marta Kostyuk and Linda Noskova.
The 22-year-old has qualified for the WTA Finals for the fifth consecutive year and is a former champion at the event, having won the title in Riyadh in 2024. With world No. 1 and defending champion Elena Rybakina withdrawn due to a viral illness, Gauff is the only former WTA Finals champion left in the draw.
Gauff is seeking to end a run of ten different champions in the past ten editions of the event. No player has repeated as winner since Serena Williams won three consecutive titles from 2012 to 2014.
Gauff has performed well at major events in 2026, winning the Cincinnati Open and reaching further WTA 1000 finals in Miami and Rome. She also reached back-to-back Grand Slam semi-finals at Wimbledon and the US Open.
Speaking to the WTA Tour website ahead of the action in Indian Wells, Navratilova, an eight-time WTA Finals singles champion, said she wants Gauff to take more opportunities to dominate at the net.
“She defends so well that she can turn a point around from almost anywhere,” Navratilova said. “Once she gets her opponent on the stretch, I want to see her follow that ball in and take away the time they need to recover.
She’s got good volleys and great reach, so there’s very little room to pass her, and it’s hard to get the ball over her head.”
Gauff won the WTA Finals for the first time in 2024 after reaching the semi-final in her second appearance in 2023. She did not defend her title in 2025, losing round-robin matches to Aryna Sabalenka and Pegula, and failed to reach the last four despite beating Jasmine Paolini.
Of the eight players in this year’s field, only world No. 2 Sabalenka has more WTA Finals appearances than Gauff. Navratilova believes that experience is a notable advantage.
“The surface should suit her just fine,” Navratilova added. “She’s played this event enough times to know what it takes to win it, and she’s done it before.
The hard part is keeping your level up when you’re playing one of the best players in the world every time you walk out there.”
Gauff’s opener against Pegula is the second match of the day in Indian Wells, following the opening match between ninth seed Kostyuk, who replaced Rybakina in the draw, and eighth seed Noskova, the Wimbledon champion. The winners of those two matches will face off on Tuesday, and the two losers will also play each other.
