Which American woman will have a better season: Coco Gauff or Jessica Pegula?

As we make our way toward the 2025 season—which begins Friday, December 27 with the United Cup—our writers and editors tackle the most important questions of the new year.

Fifth question: Which American woman will have a better season: Coco Gauff or Jessica Pegula?

Scroll down past this article to read more Burning Questions on 2025.

PETE BODO: The top two American women of the WTA, friendly rivals and former doubles partners Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula, both mined benefits out of new coaches in 2024. But on the cusp of a new year, Gauff appears well-positioned to retain her place at the top of the US pecking order.

Gauff, currently ranked No. 3, posted a convincing 6-3, 6-2 win over Pegula at the WTA Finals. It was the loser's final singles match of 2024. That left Pegula with a year-end ranking of No. 7, her lead in the series with Gauff whittled down to 4-2. Meanwhile, Gauff already has a Grand Slam trophy (Pegula does not) and three more WTA tour titles than Pegula (nine to six).

As tempting as it is to rate and compare, it’s more satisfying to look at these two fine players not as rivals but complimentary examples of distinct tennis types. Pegula has been the diligent striver, less obviously gifted, perhaps, but in among the big cats thanks to her analytical mind and excellent temperament.

Gauff’s foundation is an athleticism that has been bent to purpose for tennis, but she has an even greater natural advantage in her age. At 20, Gauff is eight years Pegula’s junior. She is still learning, and addressing rough edges in her game. Beyond basic stroke fluency, the most valuable asset these days is excellent movement—and that gives Gauff an advantage over almost all WTA pros, including Pegula.

STEVE TIGNOR: Gauff started the season solidly, making the semifinals in Melbourne in Paris. Then she went into free fall during the summer hard-court swing and split with her coach, Brad Gilbert. After that nadir, she rocketed back up with new coach Matt Daly to win the 1000 in Beijing and the Finals in Riyadh.

Pegula made her coaching change right away, splitting with David Witt in January and hiring Mark Knowles and Mark Merklein in March. After muddling through the next three months, she caught fire in the summer, winning in Canada and making the finals in Cincinnati and at the US Open.

That would seem to leave both women in promising positions for 2025. Their coaching relationships are fresh. They’ll start on hard courts, which they both like, in Australia. And they’ll have recent memories of confidence-building performances at major events.

There are reasons to like Pegula in this two-woman race. She’s 4-2 vs. Gauff head-to-head, and her runner-up US Open finish seemed to leave her hungrier to take the final step, and with more belief that she could do so.

Still, Gauff finished higher than Pegula in the rankings in 2023 and 2024, and she may have the most important edge of all: youth. Gauff will turn 21 in 2025, while Pegula will turn 31. Which means that Coco will be entering her prime, just as Jessica may be exiting hers.

It’s tough for players to manage their schedule when you’re winning that much. Mark Knowles on coaching pupil Jessica Pegula

ED MCGROGAN: While I think Gauff, a Grand Slam champion in her teens, is a safer bet than Pegula, who is still searching for her first major, let me make the case for the 30-year-old. For one, she’ll be highly motivated to get off to a good start, considering some dismal early results in 2024. She didn’t reach a final until June, and totaled just four wins at the Australian Open, Indian Wells and Miami—hard-court tournaments the US Open runner-up can thrive at. Purely in terms of rankings, Pegula can make some quick and sizable gains.

Gauff, meanwhile, could experience what Pegula did at the start of last season: figuring out how to mesh with a new coaching team. It took a while for the veteran to do so (and her problems were compounded by injuries), but she took off once she did.

“This year she had to deal with some adversity with the injuries, which is always tough,” one of Pegula’s two coaches, Mark Knowles, told me just before the US Open. “But as I explained to her in the beginning, I think it was a result of how much tennis she had been playing, which is a good problem to have.

“It’s tough for players to manage their schedule when you’re winning that much.”

With her prodigious talent, Coco can be expected to deliver no matter who’s in her corner. But if there’s any year that Pegula could sneak ahead of her longtime doubles partner, it could be this one.

Stay tuned for Saturday's question: Will Aryna Sabalenka win a non-hard-court major next season?