{"id":58796,"date":"2023-08-19T22:31:24","date_gmt":"2023-08-20T02:31:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=58796"},"modified":"2023-08-19T22:31:24","modified_gmt":"2023-08-20T02:31:24","slug":"wta-cincinnati-final-prediction-coco-gauff-vs-karolina-muchova","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2023\/08\/19\/wta-cincinnati-final-prediction-coco-gauff-vs-karolina-muchova\/","title":{"rendered":"WTA Cincinnati Final Prediction: Coco Gauff vs Karolina Muchova"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Most people were expecting a #1 vs #2 final showdown between Iga Swiatek and Aryna Sabalenka, but Coco Gauff and Karolina Muchova completely flipped the script and will both be playing for a first WTA 1000 title tomorrow. It&#8217;s a final very few, if any, people anticipated at the beginning of the week, but it is sure to be extremely compelling and competitive. The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2023\/08\/18\/wta-cincinnati-semifinal-predictions-including-iga-swiatek-vs-coco-gauff\/\" target=\"_self\">WTA Cincinnati<\/a> ends in unexpected fashion.<\/p>\n<h2>WTA Cincinnati Final Prediction<\/h2>\n<h4>Coco Gauff vs Karolina Muchova<\/h4>\n<p><strong>Head-to-head:<\/strong> first meeting<\/p>\n<p>The final matchup of the WTA Cincinnati is a first-time meeting. Both players will be vying for the biggest title of their career to date; both have lost a Slam final (both at Roland Garros in the past two editions) and both will be playing their first WTA 1000 final. It&#8217;s the first meeting between the pair so it&#8217;s even tougher to predict what might happen; Muchova backed up her Roland Garros semifinal win over Aryna Sabalenka by beating her again here in another long, epic battle. Gauff finally slayed her Iga Swiatek-shaped demons; she had never won a set against the world #1 in seven previous meetings before beating her in the semifinals here.<\/p>\n<p>If both players maintain the level they&#8217;ve shown so far this week, this is sure to be an amazing, high-quality battle. The challenge for Gauff will be to reset mentally after such a monumental achievement since the job isn&#8217;t done yet and Muchova will surely be a very tough nut to crack. Still, it does feel like the Gauff is the superior player overall and that it&#8217;s only a matter of time until she starts winning big titles on a regular basis; even if Muchova is more experienced and has been playing at a very high level, Gauff probably has a slight edge. It is a very hard final to call though and a lot will come down to how each player handles the nerves that come with fighting for the biggest title of their career.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Prediction:<\/strong> Gauff in 3<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo: Albert Cesare-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Most people were expecting a #1 vs #2 final showdown between Iga Swiatek and Aryna Sabalenka, but Coco Gauff and Karolina Muchova completely flipped the script and will both be playing for a first WTA 1000 title tomorrow. It&#8217;s a final very few, if any, people anticipated at the beginning of the week, but it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1742,"featured_media":58802,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[2747,15732,3716,15527,2373,2369,7980,7979,2374,4935],"class_list":["post-58796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-predictions","tag-coco-gauff","tag-coco-gauff-predictions","tag-karolina-muchova","tag-karolina-muchova-predictions","tag-tennis-picks","tag-tennis-predictions","tag-western-southern-open-predictions","tag-wta-cincinnati-predictions","tag-wta-picks","tag-wta-predictions"],"modified_by":"Tommy Bennett","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1742"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58796\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}