Words: Wendell Davis
Photos: Alamy
Coco Gauff, Arthur Fils, and Frances Tiafoe make history in Cincinnati
The Ohio Players formed in Dayton, about an hour up the road from the Lindner Family Tennis Center in Mason, but they didn’t start out as the Ohio Players. They spent their early years grinding it out under a different name, broke up more than once, had a founding member quit the band after a literal fistfight, and only found their stride along with a string of hit records after rebuilding the group from scratch. Fall apart, regroup, come back stronger. Resilience as it turns out, is an Ohio story, one that played out at the Cincinnati Open last weekend.
On the women’s side, Coco Gauff responded to her 2025 exit from the tournament to play some of the best tennis of her life to capture the 2026 title. And for the men, Arthur Fils beat Frances Tiafoe in the first-ever meeting between two Black men in an ATP Masters 1000 final. Collectively, Cincinnati handed us two of the most honest, interesting storylines the sport has had in a minute. One about a young woman who worked to overcome technical flaws and reclaim confidence in her game. The other, about two men breaking new ground in a level of the game that surprisingly hadn't happened sooner.
Coco Recalibrates
A year ago, Gauff was left crying in a Cincinnati parking lot after a quarterfinal loss to Jasmine Paolini that left her questioning everything about her game. She’s said it herself: frustrated, plateauing, feeding on the noise of people calling her wins lucky.
On Sunday, the same court gave her a different answer. Gauff beat Jessica Pegula 6-2, 6-4 in an hour and fourteen minutes, never trailing, up 5-0 before the first half hour was even gone. In doing so, she joined a club with exactly two other names in it, Serena Williams and Victoria Azarenka, the only women in the Open Era to win Cincinnati twice. Pegula, a friend and former doubles partner, called her “a backboard” afterward and meant it as the highest compliment tennis has: “She’s the best mover on tour, by far,” Pegula said. “A dangerous, confident Coco is going to be hard to beat going into New York.”
In 2023, Cincinnati was the launching pad for her first Grand Slam run. It was that very Grand Slam victory that also inspired the very first LOVEGAME blog post (Hot Girl Summer). This year in Cincinnati Gauff demonstrated a clear course correction from where her game has been over the past year. She credited coach Jean-Christophe Faurel and biomechanics specialist Gavin MacMillan with rebuilding more than her serve. “I feel like it’s night and day where I am from last year to now,” she said. Gauff has spent the last twelve months rewiring her relationship to her own game and came out the other side firing 120+ mph serves, and firing on all cylinders.
Fils and Tiafoe Make History of Their Own
In the men’s final, Frenchman Arthur Fils took the first set clean, lost the plot completely in the second, and then closed the door abruptly on Frances Tiafoe in the third, to win his fifth career title in three sets (6-3, 1-6, 6-0), and his first Masters 1000 title. With the win, Fils reaches a new career-high ranking (11), and becomes the first Frenchman to win a Masters 1000 since Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in Toronto, 2014. This, after returning from a stress fracture in his back that kept him sidelined for nearly eight months.
Those are the numbers, but here’s what actually matters, for the first time in the history of ATP Masters 1000 tennis, two Black men played each other in the final with all the eyes, all the cameras, all the fanfare.
Frances Tiafoe understood the significance of the moment, addressing it afterwards: “Great representation for a bunch of kids looking up to us and want to be in our position, and that’s what it’s about. Hopefully we can continue to have more and more big finals like this, having people of color in it.”
Three names (Tsonga, Shelton, Fils), in a series that’s existed since 1990. A gap that's been difficult to shrug off, particularly when Black influence around tennis has become increasingly visible. From public courts and junior programs, to indie tennis clubs, and fashion, the culture surrounding the game is slowly influencing the tours and players. Fils, Tiafoe, and Shelton didn’t create the gap on the men’s side, but they are the pillars of the bridge that will help to close it.
The storylines in Cincinnati are different, but equally important. For Coco Gauff, it’s personal. A player who’s spent the last year doing the work to improve, and is getting the dividends in the process. For Fils and Tiafoe, who have both battled injuries this season (Tiafoe with a recent procedure to have a cyst removed from his right hand/wrist), the story is bigger than either man. In Cincinnati, representation arrived on stage where it had been missing for three decades. Cincinnati gave us proof of what happens when persistence meets opportunity.
All three players will arrive at New York carrying something real. Gauff goes in knowing the entire locker room has been put on notice. Not with the burden of having to “win ugly” but with the confidence to win freely. Fils enters with a signature win that’s entirely his own, and a new career-high ranking. Tiafoe shows up with a recent 500 title from Halle and a 1000 final under his belt, believing he can recapture the magic in Queens.
The Ohio Players didn’t really need the lyrics to tell you what the groove already knew, they just needed for the right players to find their vibe. Last week in Cincinnati, Gauff, Fils, and Tiafoe found a rhythm of their own. The resilience is in the results.
