Izuchukwu OkosiCoco Gauff on Sunday moved past Elina Svitolina 6-7 (4), 6-3, 6-3, to win the Auckland Classic WTA 250 Event title for the fourth time in seven tournament finals she has played in.
The tournament is the forerunner to the start of the 2024 Australian Open tournament holding 14 – 28, January.
In total, Gauff has now won 29 times and lost four games.
Sunday’s victory also became the first time she would successfully defend a WTA title in her career.
The latter part of 2023 saw Gauff as the top seed at a WTA event for the second time having made her debut at the Auckland tournament in the year just gone by.
Svitolina claimed the first set despite Gauff very nearly winning it by leading 5-3, eventually holding two set points before the Ukrainian snatching a tie-break.
It was a battle of the ‘3’s as Svitolina was a former world number 3 while Gauff is currently in the third palve in the WTA Women’s rankings.
Gauff remarkably became the fourth player ever to beat Svitolina in a tournament final, joining a trio of players—Agnieszka Radwanska (2016 New Haven), Petra Kvitova (2016 Zhuhai) and Asheigh Barty (2019 WTA Finals) to have eased past their opponent.
Izuchukwu Okosi is a Nigerian sports and entertainment journalist with two decades of experience in the media industry having begun his media journey in 2002 as an intern at Mundial Sports International (MSI) and Africa Independent Television (AIT), owners of Daar Communications Plc.
In October 2004, Okosi joined Complete Communications Limited, publishers of Complete Sports newspaper and Complete Football magazine as a reporter and later script writer for the Complete Sports studio.
He worked there for 13 years until October 2017.
Okosi also worked various times as Correspondent, Content creator and Editor at Sports Market International Magazine, Opera News, All Nigeria Soccer Media and Iconic Media Watch.
He also undertook freelance writing gigs for some local and international organizations.
Okosi is a member of the Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN), Association of Movie Producers (AMP), Association of Voiceover Artistes of Nigeria (AVOA), Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN) and Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ).
He has been part of cast in some Nollywood movies and radio dramas including Blood Money 2, Scores To Settle, Dead End 2, Another Campus Tale and Battle Line.
Aside mainstream media and the entertainment industry, he has interests in scouting/unearthing of talents in the sports and creative sectors, exports business and property development.
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