COCO GAUFF DEFENDED her Auckland title as she beat Ukrainian Elina Svitolina to win the ASB Classic in three sets.
The 19-year-old American won 6-7 (4) 6-3 6-3 in just over two and a half hours to make it 10 straight wins at the event.
Gauff was put through a difficult, topsy-turvy first set, losing in a tiebreak.
But the teenager turned it around in the second and third sets as she improved her first serve success from 46 per cent to 73 per cent in the second and above 80 per cent in the third.
The win was the 2023 US Open winner’s seventh WTA title.
In Brisbane, Elena Rybakina defeated world number two Aryna Sabalenka in their Australian Open final rematch with a dominant straight sets win to claim the Brisbane International.
The world number four from Kazakhstan charged out of the blocks, dominating the first set 6-0 and continuing the form through the second set 6-3, winning in just over 70 minutes.
Rybakina was clinical on break points, winning five of a possible seven, and limiting the Belarusian to just one break point.
Sabalenka was on a 15-game winning streak in Australia before the loss, spanning back to the start of 2023 in Adelaide and continuing through her Australian Open-winning campaign.
The win was 24-year-old Rybakina’s sixth career title.
