Coco Gauff is into the U.S. Open final for the first time in her career and finds herself one win away from capturing her first Grand Slam title.
Standing in her way is none other than the woman who will be No. 1 in the world on Monday–regardless of Saturday’s outcome.
Gauff and Aryna Sabalenka will be squaring off for the sixth time in their careers when they battle for the trophy in New York City. Sabalenka dominated their most recent meeting 6-4, 6-0 earlier this season in Indian Wells, but Gauff still leads the head-to-head series 3-2 and all of their other encounters have been competitive. In fact, two have required third-set tiebreakers (those two showdowns were split).
Speaking of third-set ‘breakers, that is what Sabalenka needed on Thursday night in order to reach the final. Facing Madison Keys, the second-ranked Belarusian lost the first set 6-0 and trailed 5-3 in the second before storming back for an 0-6, 7-6(1), 7-6(10-5) victory.
While the new rankings will say that Sabalenka is the best, Gauff has without question been the best player on tour since Wimbledon. She is 17-1 on hard courts this summer, with titles in Washington, D.C. and Cincinnati. The 19-year-old has lost only to Jessica Pegula during her hot streak and she boasts wins over Belinda Bencic, Maria Sakkari, Marketa Vondrousova, Iga Swiatek, and Karolina Muchova twice (in the Cincinnati final and the U.S. Open semis).
Gauff’s run to Saturday’s championship match was hardly routine, however. She went to three sets with Laura Siegemund, Elise Mertens, and Caroline Wozniacki. The world No. 6 then raised her level to erase Jelena Ostapenko 6-0, 6-2 before holding off Muchova 6-4, 7-5.
Although still a teenager and with time on her side, there is more pressure on Gauff. She has never won a slam, whereas Sabalenka is the reigning Australian Open champion. It’s a difficult matchup for the American, too. Few players can hit through Gauff’s defense, but no one–except maybe Keys–wields as much power as Sabalenka. In hot, fast conditions, offense may beat defense.
This will almost certainly be way more competitive than the Indian Wells match, but a slight edge goes to Sabalenka.
Pick: Sabalenka in 3
WWW?
In semis Saba gets very nervous and makes a lot of ues. The one slam final she got to she played fantastic tennis and I reckon she will do so again and win. The crowd may put her off to some degree but I don’t think it will be enough.
The US open had been awesome. I have sabalenka to win 2st set and coco winning in 3!!!
My cheers will be for Coco Gauff. I am hoping the crowd will be enough to encourage extra effort. Saba has been #1 for too long already.😆
As grunters go, Aryna’s are right up there with the worst: long, loud, whiny grunts. I like Cocoa much more.
Oh, I just remembered that welshwitch picked Coco Gauff to win! But backhandpass picked Saba to win. Big Al has led this entire Fortnite and picked Saba as runner-up. BHPass has a near-perfect WTA bracket.
People don’t mock me; I have nothing more important to do with myself and the brackets help my brain. 🤪
Nothing wrong with that, the brackets are a great distraction, 😔
Yeah , I went for an outside winner because I wondered if Gauff would cope with the pressure and beat Iga again.U don’t know how Saba got through that.I stopped watching end second set when it looked all over
The brackets keep me in touch with tennis, whose playing well etc
Yes, nothing like picking TDC to keep in touch with how tennis changes.
Speaking of TDC, Big Al made top by 21 points. Congrats to Big Al! The rest of us. I came in 2nd because I picked the same Winner, finalist, and one SF as Big Al. We all picked Medvedev as the first SF.
The US Open WTA was already taken down.
T
WTA Osaka, I still have 25 minutes left to pick. WTA San Diego has 15 hours left to pick
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Saba very tough, but this is Coco’s day to shine…in 2.
Just checked live score and looks as if Sabs ran away with the first set.
I didn’t see the first set, but Coco got the 2nd set 6-3. In the decider Coco is up a break 2-0. And Sabs has her whine on, and she’s Saba is trying too hard, making too many errors. Sabs overhit again and gave Coco a 3-0 lead.
Coco needs to hold her serve. 4-0 Coco! She certainly has the crowd! Sabas finally gets on the scoreboard. Very proud of Coco right now. I hope she can keep this up. Come on, Coco!
Sabalenka takes a medical time-out.
Coco can’t lose her cool or tighten up. 4-1
Sabs has breakpoints. And gets it. Sabs could still win. Coco needs to be alert!
Sab lost her serve, and Coco will serve for the title.
Let’s go, Coco!
Sabs tries a drop shot in desperation.
Coco at matchpoint…..
Congratulations Coco Gauff!!
Very emotional speeches, tears all round.
Woke up and she’d won! Well done Coco! Well done me….;)
Congrats to Coco and Margot!! Am guessing Margot won the bracket…
Didn’t pick Sabs, picked Jessica, so alas I didn’t 🙁
Are you watching Wales against Fiji this evening ? Tough opener for Wales…
Margot,
Weren’t you the winner because you picked Gauff as Winner? You should have won, and I thought last I looked, but that was Saturday. Minutes ago, when I looked, the WTA brackets had already been taken down.
Thanks to everyone who picked brackets – we are all winners!
(🤭 sounding like a kindergarten teacher)
Apparently Saba broke her racquet and put it in the trash can after losing.;)
But I did see a similar thing from her when losing to Madison, she lost it and threw her racquet into a corner (no one there) and it was funny Petkovic trying to translate (she can only speak Serbian) but caught the words ‘semifinals again’
Dont know how she turned that around. Id have loved Maddy to win the whole thing.