Coco Gauff and Arthur Fils left the Cincinnati Open with the biggest trophies on Sunday, August 23, after winning two very different singles finals at the Lindner Family Tennis Center. Gauff defeated fellow American Jessica Pegula 6-2, 6-4 to win the women’s title for the second time. Fils recovered from a difficult second set to beat Frances Tiafoe 6-3, 1-6, 6-0, earning the first ATP Masters 1000 championship of his career.
Gauff controlled the women’s final almost from the opening point. The 22-year-old raced to a 5-0 lead in the first set, using her speed and defense to make Pegula play extra shots while also attacking more confidently from the baseline. Pegula briefly interrupted that momentum by breaking Gauff’s serve late in the opening set, but she could not erase the early deficit. Gauff moved ahead 3-0 in the second set and stayed in control despite failing to serve out the match at 5-2.
She responded immediately, breaking Pegula’s serve without losing a point to finish the match in one hour and 14 minutes. Gauff won 65% of the points played behind her first serve and converted five of her six break-point opportunities. She also ended the tournament with 12 consecutive sets won after dropping the opening set of her first match.
“I think with each match, I was feeling more and more confident in trusting the work that I put in,” Gauff said. The victory gave Gauff her first title of 2026 and her fourth WTA 1000 championship. She previously won Cincinnati in 2023 before going on to capture her first Grand Slam title at the US Open.
Gauff now joins Serena Williams and Victoria Azarenka as the only women to win the Cincinnati Open twice during the Open Era. Sunday’s match was also the tournament’s first all-American women’s singles final since Rosie Casals defeated Nancy Richey in 1970. Pegula reached the final after ending defending champion Iga Swiatek’s 10-match winning streak in a three-set semifinal. Although she fell short of the trophy, her Cincinnati run gives her valuable match play before the US Open begins Sunday, August 30.
The men’s final followed a far less predictable path. Fils took the opening set 6-3 behind his powerful serve and aggressive groundstrokes, but Tiafoe answered emphatically. Backed by the home crowd, the American dominated the second set 6-1 and appeared to have seized control of the match.
Tiafoe received treatment before the deciding set, although he later declined to blame any physical problem for the defeat. Fils regained his focus and won six straight games to close out the championship in one hour and 28 minutes. The Frenchman finished with 11 aces, committed only one double fault and converted four of his eight break-point opportunities.
“When you get injured, you just think about coming back for these moments,” Fils said. “I knew I could make it.” The victory completed a major comeback for the 22-year-old, who missed nearly eight months last year because of a back injury. He became the youngest French player to win an ATP Masters 1000 title and the first French champion at that level since Jo-Wilfried Tsonga won in Toronto in 2014.
Fils will rise to a career-high No. 11 in the ATP rankings. Tiafoe, meanwhile, has now finished runner-up in Cincinnati twice in three years after losing the 2024 final to Jannik Sinner. Brazil also had reason to celebrate on the final day. Orlando Luz and Rafael Matos defeated Constantin Frantzen and Robin Haase 6-4, 3-6, 10-7 to win the men’s doubles title.
Luz and Matos became only the fifth team in the Open Era to win the Canadian and Cincinnati Masters titles in the same season. They had already made history in Montreal as the first all-Brazilian partnership to win an ATP Masters 1000 championship
