By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Saturday August 15, 2020
Jennifer Brady handled the moment perfectly on Saturday, taking down highly heralded teen wunderkind Coco Gauff with relative ease to book her first career final at the Top Seed Open, 6-2 6-4.
The 24-year-old American reaches her first career final without the loss of a set and will face Switzerland’s Jil Teichmann for the title. Teichmann eased past Shelby Rogers 6-3 6-2 and has yet to drop a set this week as well.
Brady, who made waves earlier in the season when she took out World No.1 Ash Barty at Brisbane, has picked up where she left off. The American, a former UCLA standout, has had a good season in 2020 already. She earned five Top 20 wins before the coronavirus shutdown began, including three at Dubai where she reached the semis with wins over Elina Svitolina, Marketa Vondrousova and Garbiné Muguruza.
Brady’s serve was in fine form on Saturday as she won 22 of 26 first serve points and only faced one break point against Gauff.
“Yeah, I’ve been working on all aspects of the serve,” Brady told reporters in a virtual press conference. “Mainly the stroke and timing of the serve, more technique, things like that. If I’m able to serve well I’m able to start the point aggressive, start it in my favor, looking for forehands and being in control of the point from the very first shot.”
She added: “If I’m able to serve well that puts more pressure on my opponents to serve better in their service games.”
Gauff, who earned wins over World No.11 Aryna Sabalenka and World No.39 Ons Jabeur this week in Lexington, saved a match point to stay alive in the second set but there would be no comeback today. Brady served out the match to claim the victory in one hour and ten minutes.
“Physically I was okay today,” Gauff said. “To be honest Jen just played a great match. I can take away a lot from this week in general. I learned a lot. I couldn’t ask for a better first week back. The whole goal is just to be in the prime for the US Open and I think that these are good stepping stones.”
Teichmann eased past Rogers in the first semi-final to reach her first career final on hard courts. The Swiss was a two-time titlist in 2019, with both titles coming on clay, in Palermo and Prague.
“Obviously everyone thinks I’m just a clay court player,” said Teichmann. “I think I’ve proven now that it’s not only this way—I’ve been feeling great on hard courts since the beginning of the year.”
Brady and Teichmann have split their two previous meetings, one at Limoges last winter and the other at Cincinnati qualies last summer.