Decade's Best: Players of the Decade Update #4
Yes, it's time for the final nomination check before things begin to get "all official and such."
So, here is the updated nomination list in preparation for what will be a Decade "Fab 50" (yeah, I was going to go with a Top 25, but you know, I can't help myself sometimes).
That's followed by the final U.S. Open Top 10 rankings for the 2010-19 period (as well as a reminder of those for the other majors) and, lastly, a collection of all the yearly 2010's recaps for what is annually the last regularly-scheduled slam on the docket...
*2010-19 NOMINATION LIST BY-THE-NUMBERS*
STARTING NOMINATIONS: 152 players
AO adds: +5
AO cuts: -21
Post-AO: 136 players
RG adds: +5
RG cuts: -43
Post-RG: 98 players
WI adds: +1
WI cuts: -30
Post-WI: 69 players
US adds: +5 (+2 re-adds)
US cuts: -18
Two players become one entry: 10 ind. ==> 5 doubles duos
Post-US: 53 entries
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TOTAL INDIVIDUAL PLAYER NOMINATIONS: 168
# of remaining 2010-19 nominees also on Top 25 List for 2000's: 9
Five new players were added to the official nomination list due to their results at the U.S. Open, though only one survived the cutdown to 53 entries (for a "Fab 50" + an honorable mention or two, meaning one final cut from the list will remain before the first group of names are placed in a final Decade's Best sequence). That group included Caroline Dolehide (WD SF), Viktoria Kuzmova (WD SF), Aliaksandra Sasnovich (WD SF), Donna Vekic (WS QF) and, of course, Bianca Andreescu (WS W).
Originally, I was going to have a Top 25 list, then course-corrected to a Top 40 which would have dropped at least two singles slam winners from the final list. But, in the end, I decided to go with a "Fab 50" group of the decade's best performers which includes *all* the major singles champions and *most* of the WD/MX slam winners and players ranked as the doubles #1 at some point between 2010-19.
This process re-opened the door to two previously cut individuals (both following Wimbledon).
One (Jelena Jankovic) isn't a slam winner and wasn't #1 during the decade, but some of her highest-level singles results (including an Indian Wells title, slam semi and two Top 10 seasons) beyond her *far better* stretch in the 2000's at least earns her a second look. Though she still might not make the final list, joining the likes of Svetlana Kuznetsova on the outside as her general *presence* during the 2010's belied what she actually pulled off on the court. The other re-addition is Gisela Dulko, whose monster run of results at the very start of the decade is surely enough to allow her back onto the party's expanded guest list (in retrospect, she probably shouldn't have been let go on the last cut).
Meanwhile, four previously-nominated players improved their tier positions in the nominations -- Chan Hao-ching (MX RU), Aryna Sabalenka (WD W) and Wang Qiang (WS QF) had already been cut after Wimbledon -- while another (Belinda Bencic - WS SF) drops off the list this time around despite her "promotion."
This means that a total of 168 players qualified for the nomination categories (unless a previously unlisted player slips in late with a Top 10 finish in singles or doubles -- though the only player even close is probably Sofia Kenin, who'd need a crazy good finishing kick to do it if it's even possible at all -- or if there's a surprise Wheelchair Masters finalist come late in the year).
A slight bit of "finagling" was necessary to tidy things up for the final jockeying for positions, which means ten players listed individually will be combined into five doubles duos for the purposes of the Fab 50: Andrea Hlavackova/Lucie Hradecka, Liezel Huber/Lisa Raymond, Vania King/Yaroslava Shvedova, Barbora Krejcikova/Katerina Siniakova and Ekaterina Makarova/Elena Vesnina . That said, the individual accomplishments of each member -- i.e. their MX and WS results -- will serve as an unofficial "tie-breaker" if any duo is in an either/or situation with another player for a particular position on the list.
Twenty-six players made the "Players of the Decade" list for the 2000's. Nine of those players will be listed in the double-the-size list for the 2010's.
Here are the cuts after each 2019 slam, followed by the final "Fab 53 Finalists," listed both alphabetically and in descending order of category nomination:
Genie Bouchard
Madison Keys
Marketa Vondrousova
*GRAND SLAM SINGLES SEMIFINALIST*
Timea Bacsinszky
Belinda Bencic
Kiki Bertens
Julia Goerges
Johanna Konta
Elise Mertens
*GRAND SLAM SINGLES QUARTERFINALIST*
Caroline Garcia
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova
Carla Suarez-Navarro
Donna Vekic
*DOUBLES/MIXED SLAM CHAMPION*
Gaby Dabrowski
Nicole Melichar
*SLAM DOUBLES/MIXED SEMIFINAL*
Caroline Dolehide
Viktoria Kuzmova
Aliaksandra Sasnovich
IMPROMPTU QUIZ ANSWERS: Kim Clijsters (2000's #5), Cara Black (#10), Lisa Raymond (#11), Martina Hingis (16), Liezel Huber (#17), Jelena Jankovic (#22), Maria Sharapova (#3), Serena Williams (#1) and Venus Williams (#4)
Amanda Anisimova
Danielle Collins
Jelena Jankovic [reconsidered]
Andrea Petkovic
Anastasija Sevastova
*GRAND SLAM SINGLES QUARTERFINALIST*
Camila Giorgi
Kaia Kanepi
Dasha Kasatkina
Maria Kirilenko
Svetlana Kuznetsova
Petra Martic
Karolina Muchova
Nadia Petrova
Alison Riske
*DOUBLES/MIXED SLAM CHAMPION*
Gisela Dulko [reconsidered]
Anna-Lena Groenefeld
Kveta Peschke
*YEAR-END DOUBLES TOP 10*
Demi Schuurs
Rennae Stubbs
*OLYMPIC SINGLES QF-OR-BETTER*
Monica Puig
*SLAM DOUBLES/MIXED SEMIFINAL*
Raquel Atawo
Duan Yingying
Johanna Larsson
Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez
Aryna Sabalenka
Xu Yifan
*OLYMPIC DOUBLES/MIXED QUARTERFINAL*
Chan Hao-ching
*WHEELCHAIR SINGLES SLAM/MASTERS YEC/PARALYMPIC FINALS*
Marjolein Buis
Sabine Ellerbrock
*ASIAN GAMES FINALS*
Wang Qiang
Justine Henin
Sabine Lisicki
*GRAND SLAM SINGLES SEMIFINALIST*
Elena Dementieva
Kirsten Flipkens
Ana Ivanovic
Mirjana Lucic-Baroni
Tsvetana Pironkova
Magdalena Rybarikova
Zheng Jie
*GRAND SLAM SINGLES QUARTERFINALIST*
Daniela Hantuchova
Ana Konjuh
Tamira Paszek
Yulia Putintseva
Shelby Rogers
Lesia Tsurenko
Alison Van Uytvanck
Zhang Shuai
*DOUBLES/MIXED SLAM CHAMPION*
Iveta Benesova
Casey Dellacqua
Laura Siegemund
Abigail Spears
Heather Watson
*SLAM DOUBLES/MIXED SEMIFINAL*
Shuko Aoyama
Jen Brady
Harriet Dart
Kimiko Date
Margarita Gasparyan
Eri Hozumi
Miyu Kato
Andreja Klepac
Varvara Lepchenko
Christina McHale
Monica Niculescu
Makota Ninomiya
Anastasia Rodionova
Alicja Rosolska
Astra Sharma
Taylor Townsend
Galina Voskoboeva
Yang Zhaoxuan
Zheng Saisai
Jarmila Gajdosova
Melanie Oudin
*YEAR-END DOUBLES TOP 10*
Nuria Llagostera-Vives
*OLYMPIC DOUBLES/MIXED MEDALIST*
Laura Robson
*SLAM DOUBLES/MIXED SEMIFINAL*
Vera Dushevina
Marina Erakovic
Klaudia Jans-Ignacik
Michaella Krajicek
Anabel Medina-Garrigues
Chanelle Scheepers
Tamarine Tanasugarn
*OLYMPIC DOUBLES/MIXED QUARTERFINAL*
Irina-Camelia Begu
Chuang Chia-jung
Teliana Pereira
*WHEELCHAIR SINGLES SLAM/MASTERS YEC/PARALYMPIC FINALS*
Daniela Di Toro
Florence Gravellier
Korie Homan
Sharon Walraven
*ASIAN GAMES FINALS*
Akgul Amanmuradova
Chan Chin-wei
Aldila Sutjiadi
Here are the official remaining nominations, listed alphabetically, then in descending order of nominating category "importance":
Victoria Azarenka
Timea Babos
Marion Bartoli
Ash Barty
Cara Black
Latisha Chan
Dominika Cibulkova
Kim Clijsters
Diede de Groot (wc)
Gisela Dulko
Sara Errani
Jiske Griffioen (wc)
Simona Halep
Martina Hingis
Andrea Hlavackova/Lucie Hradecka
Hsieh Su-wei
Liesel Huber/Lisa Raymond
Jelena Jankovic
Yui Kamiji (wc)
Angelique Kerber
Vania King/Yaroslava Shvedova
Barbora Krejcikova/Katerina Siniakova
Petra Kvitova
Li Na
Ekaterina Makarova/Elena Vesnina
Bethanie Mattek-Sands
Sania Mirza
Kristina Mladenovic
Garbine Muguruza
Naomi Osaka
Alona Ostapenko
Peng Shuai
Flavia Pennetta
Karolina Pliskova
Aga Radwanska
Lucie Safarova
Francesca Schiavone
Maria Sharapova
Katarina Srebotnik
Sloane Stephens
Samantha Stosur
Barbora Strycova
Elina Svitolina
CoCo Vandeweghe
Aniek Van Koot (wc)
Esther Vergeer (wc)
Roberta Vinci
Jordanne Whiley (wc)
Serena Williams
Venus Williams
Caroline Wozniacki
Vera Zvonareva
NOTE: Even with the expanded list, there are going to be some "left out." In this case, though the legitimate options are few, I suspect the absence of at least two could be arguable. For example, Kveta Peschke is the only player who was ranked doubles #1 during the decade (in 2011) not amongst the Final 53 entries, while a player such as Kiki Bertens (Top 5 and a singles semi, and Fed Cup heroics) might have been considered, as well. But that'll be made up at least in a small way with their inclusion -- in the case of Kiki, in a quite high position -- on later separate lists of the Top Doubles and Top Fed Cup players for 2010-19. Marjolein Buis would be the "footnote" wheelchair addition to the list.
*GRAND SLAM SINGLES CHAMPION* (19)
Bianca Andreescu
Victoria Azarenka
Marion Bartoli
Ash Barty
Kim Clijsters
Simona Halep
Angelique Kerber
Petra Kvitova
Li Na
Garbine Muguruza
Naomi Osaka
Alona Ostapenko
Flavia Pennetta
Francesca Schiavone
Maria Sharapova
Sloane Stephens
Samantha Stosur
Serena Williams
Caroline Wozniacki
*GRAND SLAM SINGLES RUNNER-UP* (8)
Dominika Cibulkova
Sara Errani
Karolina Pliskova
Aga Radwanska
Lucie Safarova
Roberta Vinci
Venus Williams
Vera Zvonareva
*GRAND SLAM SINGLES SEMIFINALIST* (7)
Jelena Jankovic
Peng Shuai
Ekaterina Makarova (listed w/ Vesnina)
Barbora Strycova
Elina Svitolina
CoCo Vandeweghe
Elena Vesnina (listed w/ Makarova)
*GRAND SLAM SINGLES QUARTERFINALIST* (2)
Kristina Mladenovic
Yaroslava Shvedova (listed w/ King)
*YEAR-END TOP 10* (0)
--
*EIGHT-OR-MORE WTA SINGLES TITLES - 2010-19* (0)
--
*DOUBLES/MIXED SLAM CHAMPION* (16)
Timea Babos
Cara Black
Latisha Chan
Gisela Dulko
Martina Hingis
Hsieh Su-wei
Liezel Huber (listed w/ Raymond)
Vania King (listed w/ Shvedova)
Barbora Krejcikova (listed w/ Siniakova)
Bethanie Mattek-Sands
Sania Mirza
Andrea S.-Hlavackova (listed w/ Hradecka)
Lucie Hradecka (listed w/ Hlavackova)
Lisa Raymond (listed w/ Huber)
Katerina Siniakova (listed w/ Krejcikova)
Katarina Srebotnik
*YEAR-END DOUBLES TOP 10* (0)
--
*OLYMPIC SINGLES QF-OR-BETTER* (0)
--
*OLYMPIC DOUBLES/MIXED MEDALIST* (0)
--
*SLAM DOUBLES/MIXED SEMIFINAL* (0)
--
*OLYMPIC DOUBLES/MIXED QUARTERFINAL* (0)
--
*WHEELCHAIR SINGLES SLAM/MASTERS YEC/PARALYMPIC FINALS* (6)
Diede de Groot
Jiske Griffioen
Yui Kamiji
Aniek Van Koot
Esther Vergeer
Jordanne Whiley
*WHEELCHAIR DOUBLES SLAM/MASTERS YEC/PARALYMPIC TITLE* (0)
--
*ASIAN GAMES FINALS* (0)
--
Aside from you-know-who, the U.S. Open's decade of champions was dominated by a series of one-timers -- usually maiden slam winners, no less -- who serve to make it difficult to separate too many players from the overall pack of individuals who rose to the ultimate occasion during one two-week stretch during the 2010's.
While Serena Williams won three titles between 2010-19, five first-time major champions were crowned at Flushing Meadows in the decade, along with two others who won once. Fourteen different woman filled the twenty singles finals slots, but the last seven years saw only Williams play in more than one championship match.
...save for the residue of the (first) Clijsters comeback early on, Serena drove the narrative the entire decade at Flushing Meadows. If she wasn't winning (which she did three straight times from 2012-14), she was losing in the final (2011,18-19). If she didn't reach the final, often the player who beat her did (2015-16), often becoming an overnight sensation (Vinci in '15, before Osaka and Andreescu later did the same) as a result. If she wasn't charming the masses (anytime she won the title), she was creating controversy (2011 & '18), marking new eras in tennis fashion, or even announcing the birth of her daughter ('17). While she didn't manage to catch Margaret Court with her 24th career slam win despite two decade-closing chances in her home slam's final, Williams set a record with her 10th career Open era final in New York, tied Chris Evert's U.S. match win mark (101), and became the oldest slam finalist ever (at nearly 38).
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2. Flavia Pennetta, ITA
...she'll be remembered for her magical title run in 2015 when she became the oldest first-time slam champ ever and then announced her retirement plans during the post-match ceremony, but the Italian was a force throughout the decade. Starting in 2011, Pennetta posted QF-SF-QF-W in her last four appearances in New York, and even reached a WD final with Martina Hingis in '14 (as well as a semi in '15 w/ Sara Errani).
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3. Angelique Kerber, GER
...the German had her slam breakthrough in 2011 with her maiden major semifinal run (she'd been 7-15 in slam MD before that Open). Five years later, in her #1 season, she won her second career slam crown in New York in a campaign that saw her reach the finals at the Australian Open (W), Wimbledon, the Olympics, the U.S. Open (W) and WTA Finals.
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4. Samantha Stosur, AUS
...the Aussie had a great start to the decade, posting two QF results and her maiden slam win in 2011 when she became the only woman other than Venus Williams (2) or Maria Sharapova (1) to defeat Serena in 25 slam finals between 1999-2015. Stosur was the first Aussie woman to win a singles major since 1980, and (is still) the only to do so in New York since 1973.
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5. Kim Clijsters, BEL
...Clijsters successfully defended her '09 crown to begin the decade, and extended her U.S. Open match winning streak to 22 matches (2005-12, with four missed years mixed in). She announced her retirement and played her final match (a 2nd Round loss) in 2012, only to shock everyone by later announcing in 2019 that it *wasn't* the Belgian Waffle's career swan song. In 2020 she'll join the likes of both Martinas (Navratilova and Hingis) in returning to the tour *after* being inducted into the Hall of Fame. Only *she's* planning on staging her second comeback (at age 36) as a *singles* player.
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6. Caroline Wozniacki, DEN
...the Dane's best slam has traditionally been the U.S. Open. She reached her maiden major final there in 2009, and opened the 2010's with back-to-back semis. After having briefly fallen out of the Top 10, in 2014 she returned to the final at Flushing Meadows. Another semi came two years later. It'd take her until '18 to win her first major, but it came in Melbourne rather than New York. Her issues with injuries and a diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis hampered her decade-ending efforts, but her 28 match wins, 13 straight MD appearances and numerous night matches made her a consistent personality throughout.
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7. Victoria Azarenka, BLR
...in the decade's early years, Azarenka seemed destined to one day win the U.S. Open. Her 2012-13 three-set clashes in the final with Serena Williams -- after the women's championship hadn't had once since 1999 -- set the tone for an ultra-competitive string of events at Flushing Meadows. But then life got in the way. After QF finishes in 2014-15, motherhood and a custody battle cost her two years in 2016-17, then inconsistency and horrible draws hampered her attempts to get back to being a slam contender. She turned 30 in the weeks before the 2019 Open. She lost in the 1st Round in singles, but rebounded with her first slam WD final appearance (w/ Ash Barty) in eight years. Maybe she hasn't written off that "destined to one day..." notion quite yet, after all.
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8t. Sloane Stephens, USA and Naomi Osaka, JPN
...not exactly "one-hit wonders," but also not with decade-long track records to fall back on, Stephens and Osaka led the late-2010's "changing of the guard" and essentially spearheaded the new star-making process that both foretold and kicked off the "Future is Now" vibe that pervades the WTA tour. Stephens' stunning summertime run after returning from foot surgery in '17 produced a career high moment for the enigmatic Bannerette, whose other 2010-19 results either hint at better things (3r-3r-4r in her first three appearances, then a QF run when defending her title in '18) or make one wonder if '17 is as good as it'll ever get (a 1st Rd. upset in '19).
Osaka's title run in 2018 was as earth-shattering and potentially game-changing as any in a major since, well, Serena's 1999 win at Flushing Meadows. So it was fitting that she won her title in a dominating win in the final over her idol. Thing is, though, Osaka has risen to the occasion more than once in New York. In 2017, she ended defending champ Angelique Kerber's reign, and in '19 won the marquee match-up with 15-year old Coco Gauff under the lights on Ashe en route to a Round of 16 finish in *her* title defense attempt.
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9. ???
...it's not even the #10 spot and I'm already going to this? Well, yes, in a decade with so many longtime (but title-less) contenders *and* a few newcomer champions, so many things come down to virtual "coin flips" for this Top 10 ranking.
So, as I did with a few other slams in this series, here are *my* contenders for #9, in alphabetical order (you can make your own pick, then see which one I went with)...
Kaia Kanepi, EST: the Estonian posted two QF results seven years (2010/17) years apart, as well as a pair of Round of 16's separated by four (2014/18). In many years, the title either went through her or she "primed" an opponent for greater Open success. In 2010, she lost to Vera Zvonareva, who went on to reach the final. In 2013, she fell vs. would-be 2016 champ Angie Kerber ('16). In '14, she defeated former winner Sam Stosur, only to lose to ultimate champ Serena Williams. In '17 she defeated Naomi Osaka a year before the Japanese star won the crown, in the same tournament in which she lost to Madison Keys, who'd then reach her maiden slam final. In '18, Kanepi upset #1-seed Simona Halep, but lost to eventual finalist Serena again. Of course, she has a history of such things, having defeated Petra Kvitova at Wimbledon the year before *she* won SW19, as well as falling vs. Sharapova at the same Roland Garros (2012) at which the Russian collected her first title in Paris.
Madison Keys, USA: a maiden slam finalist in 2017, Keys hit her way through the back-half of the decade with 4r-4r-RU-SF-4r results at Flushing Meadows from 2015-19 while becoming the unofficial "host" of her own late night show on Ashe Stadium with a series of matches played into the early morning hours, including the two latest-ending women's matches (1:48 and 1:45 a.m., respectively) in tournament history in 2016 and 2017.
Karolina Pliskova, CZE: the Czech had her best stretch of big results during the summer of 2016, reaching her maiden slam final at Flushing Meadows (after defeating *both* Venus and Serena Williams) to begin a RU-QF-QF-4r finish to her decade at the U.S. Open.
Anastasija Sevastova, LAT: after her own mid-career "retirement," the Latvian returned and ended the decade having found her New York Groove for an extended stretch, posting back-to-back-to-back QF-QF-SF results while recording 15 of her 31 career slam MD wins at Flushing Meadows between 2016-19.
Maria Sharapova, RUS: from her outfits to her headlining match nighttime appearances (including two late-decade Day 1 1st Round matches vs. Simona Halep and S.Williams), Sharapova's star power made her a big story in New York even as she was never able to match her 2006 title run with an effective 2010's follow-up. Still, even while missing three Opens due to injury and suspension, the Russian had one SF (2012) and four other second week (all 4th Rd.) finishes.
Roberta Vinci, ITA: the Italian vet turned the U.S. Open into her personal slam playground this decade, posting all four of her career slam QF+ results at Flushing Meadows. Her semifinal upset of Serena Williams in '15 may be the single most memorable match at the tournament in the 2010's, and she was the only singles finalist this decade to also win the doubles (2012) within the time frame.
Venus Williams, USA: Williams reached the Open final in '97 at age 17, won back-to-back titles in 2000-01 and reached another final in '02. But while her big-time success waned in the 2010's, Williams still reached two semis in NYC in the decade in which she'd already turned 30 before the 2010 U.S. Open began. Her most recent semi came in 2017 at age 37, making her only player to reach major semifinals ten years apart *twice* -- 1997, '07 and '17 -- in a career.
...a few of those were included just because I thought they deserved mention, but I felt that the decision came down to one of three: Sharapova, Vinci or Venus.
10. Bianca Andreescu, CAN
...though she was a late-comer in the race, Andreescu's masterful decade-closing title run in her U.S. Open debut appearance in 2019 leaves her as the only champion this decade to *never* lose a MD match in the tournament, so even with her frighteningly small sample size that's enough to reserve the wrap-up spot in this U.S. Open Top 10. The first Canadian slam winner, the teenager (who'd reached the girls semis at age 16 just three years earlier) was the first player since Venus Williams in 1997 to reach the women's final in her first attempt.
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...Hingis' long-rumored return to the sport finally became a reality in 2013, right after she'd been inducted into the Hall of Fame. The thirtysomething, one-time Swiss Miss then went about constructing a doubles career that might have earned her a HoF berth had her teenage exploits in singles *never* happened at all. Hingis, last crowned at Flushing Meadows as the 2000 singles champ, won more (4) of her final act major titles (10) at the U.S. Open than at any other slam, sweeping the singles and mixed crowns twice (2015 & '17) while reaching another WD final in '14. By the end of the decade, she was retired again, and no longer a Swiss Miss, as she got married and had a baby.
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2. Bethanie Mattek-Sands, USA
...in her home slam, Mattek-Sands claimed three titles at the Open during the decade even while missing the event three times due to injury (and seeing partner Lucie Safarova's injury cost her a fourth WD competition in '15). BMS & Safarova (aka "Team Bucie") came back a year later and won the doubles in 2016, then Mattek-Sands returned from another injury (which happened at Wimbledon, costing the duo a chance to defend their title) to win back-to-back MX titles with Jamie Murray in 2018-19. She reached another MX final with Sam Querrey in '15.
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3. Liezel Huber, USA
...Huber won five of her seven career slams in the 2000's, but both of her wins this decade came in New York. In 2010-11, the South African-born Bannerette compiled a combined 17-2 WD/MX mark at the Open, reaching both finals in '10 (winning the MX w/ Bob Bryan) and then coming back a year later and taking the doubles w/ Lisa Raymond.
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4. Sania Mirza, IND
...Mirza, who'd reached #1 in April '15, finally won her maiden WD slam at Wimbledon that year, then a second straight major that summer at the Open alongside Hingis (they won the '16 AO, too). She picked up a MX crown with Bruno Soares in '14.
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5. Vania King/Yaroslava Shvedova, USA/KAZ
...for a brief stretch at the start of the decade, King/Shvedova were one of the tour's most dominant doubles pairs, not to mention one of the most fun to watch. Over a fourteen-month stretch in 2010-11, they reached three slam finals, winning two. After winning the Open in 2010, they returned to the final a year later and dropped a 3rd set TB in their attempt at a successful title defense. Later, Shvedova reached another final (w/ Casey Dellacqua) at Flushing Meadows in 2015, while King made it into the semis with Caroline Dolehide in '19.
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6. Ekaterina Makarova, RUS
...the Hordette paired with countrywoman Elena Vesnina to reach seven slam finals in the decade, but only one at Flushing Meadows (a win in '14). She picked up a MX win with Bruno Soares in '12, as well as reaching a singles semi in her WD title-winning year.
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7. Andrea Hlavackova/Lucie Hradecka, CZE/CZE
...their off-and-on (and off again) partnership was one of the more consistent in terms of results this decade. The combination produced back-to-back U.S. Open WD finals in 2012-13, with a win in attempt #2. Hradecka reached another final in '17 with NextGen Czech Katerina Siniakova, while Hlavackova won a MX crown with Max Mirnyi in '13.
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8. Ash Barty, AUS
...the Aussie reached three doubles finals with three different partners -- '13 Dellacqua, '18 Vandeweghe, '19 Azarenka -- even while missing two slams in the middle of the decade during her brief early-career sabbatical. After having lost her first four career slam WD finals (one a piece at each major) with Casey Dellacqua, Barty finally notched her maiden win with Vandeweghe.
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9. Sara Errani/Roberta Vinci, ITA/ITA
...only one of the Italians' eight slam finals as a duo came in New York, but they won in their lone big Open run in 2012, claiming their second major as a duo en route to completing a Career Doubles Slam over a 25-month stretch from 2012-14, ultimately winning five slam titles in all.
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10. Melanie Oudin, USA
...Oudin's big U.S. Open moment came in the previous decade, when she upset four straight Russians (Pavlyuchenkova, Dementieva, Sharapova & Petrova) en route the QF in 2009. But two years later she had another when she won the MX doubles at Flushing Meadows alongside Jack Sock.
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...the (and in this case, maybe the *only* one, since there is *no* argument to be made... it just *is*) wheelchair "GOAT" only played in New York twice in the decade, but did at Flushing Meadows what she did at nearly every slam she *ever* played -- she never lost. Vergeer swept the singles/doubles titles in 2010-11 prior to her post-2012 retirement (the WC event wasn't held at the Open in '12 due to the Paralympics). It looks like Conchita Martinez may finally get into the International Hall of Fame this year. Vergeer is eligible now, so when will she, the most dominant athlete is *any* sport over (at least) the last *two* decades, get the call?
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2. Diede de Groot, NED
...the protege is hot on the mentor's heels, as Diede the Great swept the singles/doubles in 2018-19. If she'd done the same in her U.S. debut in 2017 (she won the doubles, but was runner-up in singles) she might have edged Vergeer for the top spot.
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3. Yui Kamiji, JPN
...Kamiji was on the cusp of something great in New York, and won as many titles in NYC during the decade as Vergeer (2 S, 2 D) but lost back-to-back singles finals to de Groot to end the 2010's.
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4. Aniek Van Koot, NED
...Van Koot has played in the shadow of many -- Vergeer, Jiske Griffioen, and de Groot just within her own nation -- but is one of the most successful WC athletes in the sport's history. She won the U.S. Open singles in 2013 in the first post-Vergeer event, and claimed the doubles three times.
=============================
5. Jordanne Whiley, GBR
...mid-decade, Whiley was on track to be a contender for the top spot. She & Kamiji won the doubles in '14, and she followed up claiming her maiden singles slam in '15. But through a combination of absences due to the Paralympics (2016), pregnancy (2017-18) and the Powers That Be (2019, when she was ranked in the Top 8 but left out of the MD due to a wild card given to a U.S. athlete) Whiley hasn't played in the Open since.
=============================
Australian Open 2010-19
[Top 10]
1.Serena Williams, USA
2.Li Na, CHN
3.Victoria Azarenka, BLR
4.Angelique Kerber, GER
5.Kim Clijsters, BEL
6.Caroline Wozniacki, DEN
7.Naomi Osaka, JPN
8.Maria Sharapova, RUS
9.Ekaterina Makarova, RUS
10.Aga Radwanska, POL
[Doubles]
1.Sara Errani/Roberta Vinci, ITA/ITA
2.Bethanie Mattek-Sands/Lucie Safarova, USA/CZE
3.Martina Hingis, SUI
4.Kristina Mladenovic, FRA
5.Svetlana Kuznetsova/Vera Zvonareva, RUS/RUS
HM-Serena Williams/Venus Williams, USA/USA
[Wheelchair]
1.Esther Vergeer, NED
2.Yui Kamiji, JPN
3.Diede de Groot, NED
4.Jiske Griffioen, NED
5.Aniek Van Koot, NED
Roland Garros 2010-19
[Top 10]
1.Serena Williams, USA
2.Maria Sharapova, RUS
3.Simona Halep, ROU
4.Garbine Muguruza, ESP
5.Francesca Schiavone, ITA
6.Samantha Stosur, AUS
7.Li Na, CHN
8.Sara Errani, ITA
9.Sloane Stephens, USA
10.Lucie Safarova, CZE
[Doubles]
1.Bethanie Mattek-Sands, USA
2.Kristina Mladenovic, FRA
3.Mattek-Sands/Safarova, USA/CZE
4.Lucie Hradecka, CZE
5.Errani/Vinci, ITA/ITA
6.Latisha Chan, TPE
7.Hlavackova/Hradecka, CZE/CZE
8.Makarova/Vesnina, RUS/RUS
9.Sania Mirza, IND
10.Katarina Srebotnik, SLO
11.Gaby Dabrowski, CAN
12.Anna-Lena Groenefeld, GER
HM-Krejcikova/Siniakova, CZE/CZE
[Wheelchair]
1.Esther Vergeer, NED
2.Yui Kamiji, JPN
3.Jiske Griffioen, NED
4.Diede de Groot, NED
5.Marjolein Buis, NED
Wimbledon 2010-19
[Top 10]
1.Serena Williams, USA
2.Petra Kvitova, CZE
3.Angelique Kerber, GER
4.Garbine Muguruza, ESP
5.Aga Radwanska, POL
6.Sabine Lisicki, GER
7.Venus Williams, USA
8.Simona Halep, ROU
9.Marion Bartoli, FRA
10.Maria Sharapova, RUS
[Doubles]
1.Martina Hingis, SUI
2.Serena Williams/Venus Williams, USA/USA
3. Hsieh Su-wei, TPE
4.Elena Vesnina, RUS
5.Ekaterina Makarova/Elena Vesnina, RUS/RUS
7.Kristina Mladenovic, FRA
8.Heather Watson, GBR
9.Timea Babos, HUN
10.Lisa Raymond, USA
HM-Sara Errani/Roberta Vinci, ITA/ITA
[Wheelchair]
1.Yui Kamiji/Jordanne Whiley, JPN/GBR
2.Diede de Groot, NED
3.AnieK Van Koot, NED
4.Jiske Griffioen, NED
5.Esther Vergeer, NED
U.S. Open 2010-19
[Top 10]
1.Serena Williams, USA
2.Flavia Pennetta, ITA
3.Angelique Kerber, GER
4.Samantha Stosur, AUS
5.Kim Clijsters, BEL
6.Caroline Wozniacki, DEN
7.Victoria Azarenka, BLR
8t.Sloane Stephens, USA and Naomi Osaka, JPN
9.Roberta Vinci, ITA
10.Bianca Andreescu, CAN
[Doubles]
1.Martina Hingis, SUI
2.Bethanie Mattek-Sands, USA
3.Liezel Huber, USA
4.Sania Mirza, IND
5.Vania King/Yaroslava Shvedova, USA/KAZ
6.Ekaterina Makarova, RUS
7.Andrea Hlavackova/Lucie Hradecka, CZE/CZE
8.Ash Barty, AUS
9.Sara Errani/Roberta Vinci, ITA/ITA
10.Melanie Oudin, USA
[Wheelchair]
1.Esther Vergeer, NED
2.Diede de Groot, NED
3.Yui Kamiji, JPN
4.Aniek Van Koot, NED
5.Jordanne Whiley, GBR
One year after Kim Clijsters' comeback had kicked off with a U.S. Open title run, the Belgian returned to New York in 2010 and answered all questions about whether her second career stint was going to be as frustrating on the slam stage as her first had been. In truth, she was in the process of completely rewriting the opening paragraph of her career biography.
After having dominated in the early rounds, dropping just fourteen games through her first four matches (including three each vs. Petra Kvitova and Ana Ivanovic), Clijsters won a pair of three-setters over Samantha Stosur and Venus Williams to reach the final. The primetime match against Vera Zvonareva turned out to be an anticlimactic, thoroughly uncompetitive affair, one of the worst finals in slam history, as the Russian barely put up any defense and won just three games. It was the fewest games won in a U.S. Open final since 1976. Oddly enough, Zvonareva had beaten Clijsters *twice* that summer, at Wimbledon and Montreal.
Clijsters would go on to claim her first Australian Open title in 2011, her third major win (in five slam appearances) since returning to the game in '09 after a nearly two-year retirement. In running her overall slam total to four, Clijsters recast the entire notion of what her tennis career had been, not to mention establishing something of a template for future players when it came to deciding to walk away from the sport, be it because of pregnancy, injuries or other pressures, and then returning healthy, refreshed and more prepared for success in another go-round.
Even while having not lost in NYC since 2003, the Belgian would win just one more match in New York, in 2012 after missing '11 due to injury. It would be the recurrence of a number of injuries that finally drove Clijsters from the tour for good, as she'd announced that the '12 Open would be her final tournament.
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Zvonareva was playing in her second straight slam singles final, and third final (w/ the Wimbledon WD) in the last two majors.
The Russian's 2010 Open run had come just one year after an appearance in '09 when Zvonareva has put on a now-infamous display of temper and frustration at Flushing Meadows during which she'd smashed her racket, pounded on her knee and angrily torn bandages off her leg. Crying between points, she was, quite simply, a mess in what turned out to be a Round of 16 love 3rd set loss to Flavia Pennetta.
In 2010, Zvonareva had managed to contain her emotions while advancing to the final without dropping a set, defeating #1-seeded Caroline Wozniacki in the semis. Once things began to go bad in the final, however, some of her old demons resurfaced as she seemed on verge of tears, slammed her racket, fired a ball across court after dropping the 1st set, and (seemingly) cursed herself out in Russian.
This slam was the first in her career at which Wozniacki had been the #1 seed (she'd hold the top spot at the next five majors), having assumed to spot due to Wimbledon champ Serena Williams' withdrawal from the event. A year after having reached her maiden slam final in New York, Wozniacki would post her first of two straight semifinal finishes. Through her first five matches, Wozniacki lost just three total games and committed a total of 56 unforced errors as she ran her winning streak to thirteen matches. The Dane then ousted Maria Sharapova and Dominika Cibulkova in straight sets.
In the semis vs. Zvonareva, though, Wozniacki had 31 UE's alone, losing 4 & 3. She'd reach her second U.S. Open final in '14, but it'd be in Australia (in 2018) where she'd finally win her first major title.
===============================================
Serena Williams' absence -- marking the first time in the 35-year history of the WTA that the world #1 didn't play at the U.S. Open -- came because of foot injuries (inch deep cuts) she suffered after stepping on broken glass at a Munich bar following Wimbledon (on the day that Germany was ousted from that year's World Cup). Though she played in an exhibition in Europe after the incident, then returned home, she'd torn a tendon in one and got stitches in both feet.
"My big toe was drooping, and I thought, 'My toe shouldn't be hanging like this,'" Williams said. "I saw a specialist in New York and had an MRI, and he said I had a tendon that was torn. He said I didn't necessarily have to fix it, but I'd have a droopy toe the rest of my life. I thought it over and decided it was better to have the surgical procedure, for my career and for my life."
Williams would ultimately be out 51 weeks, as complications from the injury led to blood clots in her lungs, and emergency surgery to remove an embolism.
Two-time U.S. Open champ Justine Henin had also pulled out of the event due to an elbow injury she'd suffered at Wimbledon. The Belgian would miss the rest of the season, then retire after losing in the Australian Open in 2011, citing the unhealed elbow as the reason. Henin never played in New York during her comeback, with her final appearance remaining her last title run in the event in 2007.
===============================================
One of the scariest moments in the tournament's history occurred in the 2nd Round, as Victoria Azarenka staggered and collapsed on the court while trailing Gisela Dulko 5-1 in the 1st set on a particularly hot and humid day.
Azarenka was hospitilized after the match, but it was learned that *this* collapse (she'd had a similar incident at the 2009 AO which had been blamed on food poisoning) had not been heat related, but rather she'd suffered a concussion during an earlier fall in the gym during a sprint drill. She'd come to court soon afterward, never informing trainers of the incident. Azarenka had seemed disoriented from the start of the match, whiffing on a serve at one point, and the headache, dizziness and blurry vision came not long into the 30-minute match.
Added to the mix was was that the day before hockey star Nikolai Khabibulin had been sentenced to 30 days in jail for a DUI conviction. The Russian had helped Azarenka settle in Arizona when she moved to the U.S. from Belarus. His wife was friends with Azarenka's mother, and the couple had decided to help her, becoming close friends.
===============================================
Even while Zvonareva was reaching the final, early evidence of the dismantling of the Russian tennis revolution was soon apparent.
Zvonareva's play in majors was sporadic after 2011, and she didn't appear in a U.S. Open MD from 2012-17 while dealing with injuries, surgeries, several hiatuses from the sport, and having a baby in 2016.
This turned out to be Elena Dementieva's final slam, as she'd dramatically retire on court after her final match at the WTA Championships. In New York, her last match had been a Round of 16 loss to Samantha Stosur, a battle in which she'd held four MP and that didn't finish until 1:37 a.m. (the latest-ending women's match in tournament history until 2016).
Meanwhile, former #1 Dinara Safina's final U.S. Open match was a 1st Round loss to Daniela Hantuchova, 6-3/6-4.
After a crazy good run of slam results from 2008-09 (RU-3r-SF-RU-RU-SF from the '08 RG to '09 WI), Safina never reached another major QF, and played in just four slam MD. In 2011 at 25, Safina's career ended (seemingly, as her brother Marat had stated it to be so, only to have Dinara quickly deny it) due to a chronic back injury. She played her last match in April '11, but didn't officially retire until 2014.
===============================================
In 2009, Melanie Oudin had been the (seemingly annual) first week new Bannerette star whose run (not as common) had been extended into week #2, as the 17-year old strung together wins over four Russians -- Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, #4 Elena Dementieva, #29 Maria Sharapova and #13 Nadia Petrova, the last three in three-setters -- en route to the quarterfinals, where she lost to Caroline Wozniacki. By 2010, Oudin was ranked as high as #31 in the spring.
After having "BELIEVE" embroidered on her shoes during her '09 run, Oudin's '10 footwear was emblazoned with "COURAGE." But after an easy 1st Round win over Olga Savchuk, Oudin's year-after trip to NYC ended with a 2nd Round loss to #29 Alona Bondarenko.
No matter, though, as the Cinderella home favorite role was filled by 18-year old Beatrice Capra, an Evert Academy alum who put on (come on, you *have* to say it) "Capraesque" run to the 3rd Round.
The #371-ranked wild card had won the USTA's summer playoff tournament to make her slam debut. Having never won a WTA MD match, Capra posted upset wins over Karolina Sprem and #18 Aravane Rezai. As she reached the 3rd Round, Capra was set to face in the next two rounds two of Oudin's 2009 opponents: Sharapova and Wozniacki. She never got to face both, losing to Sharapova love & love.
Of course, tennis (and life) can sometimes be cruel. Neither Oudin nor Capra ever won another match U.S. Open MD match.
Oudin managed to win the MX title (w/ Jack Sock) in Flushing Meadows in 2011, and picked up a WTA singles title in 2012, but health issues eventually wreaked havoc with her career. In her final years as a pro, Oudin suffered from a muscle condition that causes weakness and fatigue, as well as chest pains and a heavily beating heart that was originally diagnosed as panic attacks but was later determined to be a heart arrhythmia that required an operation that failed to fix the problem. She was also afflicted with a growth on her eye, as well as a torn muscle in her hand. She stuck it out for as long as she could, but eventually retired in 2017.
Capra, who held a career high rank of #201 immediately after the '10 Open, never played another match in a major. She did play #1 singles for Duke, and was named the national Freshman of the year and a three-time NCAA All-American. But her senior season was cut short when she was diagnosed with generalized epilepsy, and she was never able to pursue a pro tennis career. She tells her story here.
Capra graduated from Duke in 2016, and in 2018 joined the coaching staff of the Yale tennis team.
===============================================
Draw notes:
* - qualifier Mirjana Lucic's 1st Round win over Alicia Molik was her first at a major in eight years, and her first at the U.S. Open since 1999. The Croat, who'd experienced familial breakdown and abuse as a teenager, would post the third-best slam result of her career at Flushing Meadows in 2014 (4th Rd.), and would stick around long enough to reach the Australian Open semis in 2017 at age 34, eighteen seasons after she'd played in her only other slam SF at Wimbledon at age 17.
* - Simona Halep made her U.S. Open debut (her second major MD appearance) in a 1st Round match vs. #4-seed Jelena Jankovic. The Romanian served for the match at 5-4 in the 3rd set, and got within two points of the win. But '08 Open finalist Jankovic rallied from 30/love down to get the break, then held for 6-5 and broke Halep at love to win 6-4/4-6/7-5.
In the 3rd Round, Jankovic would lose to Kaia Kanepi in windy conditions during which the frustrated Serb complained to her player's box and pleaded with the weather to give her a break. After dropping the 1st set at 6-2, JJ had served for the 2nd set at 6-5, but was broken after leading 40/15. She then lost a 7-1 tie-break.
* - Jamie Hampton made her slam debut as a wild card, losing in the 1st Round to #22 Maria Jose Martinez-Sanchez. The talented but oft-injured Bannerette would hit her stride during the 2013 season, reaching at least the 3rd Round at three majors (all career bests), only to suffer a hip injury in early 2014 that required six surgeries and never permitted her to return to the tour.
* - Swiss Patty Schnyder played in her last U.S. Open until her 2018 career farewell, losing in the 3rd Round to Yanina Wickmayer after having held a MP.
A former slam semifinalist and six-time quarterfinalist (including at the U.S. in '98 and '08), Schnyder never won another MD match at a major. After back-to-back 1st Round AO & RG exits in '11 she didn't play in another slam until the '17 Open qualifying rounds. She'd surprisingly retired in mid-2011, then returned to tennis in 2015 at age 36 after the birth of her daughter. Having qualified to finally work her way back into a slam MD (a 1st Rd. loss to Sharapova) at Flushing Meadows in '18, just months shy of her 40th birthday, Schnyder retired again that November. Soon after, she announced that she was pregnant with her second child.
* - meanwhile, 39-year old Kimiko Date-Krumm played in her first U.S. Open MD match since 1996, losing in the 1st Round to #11 Svetlana Kuznetsova. The Japanese vet would go 0-6 in qualifying and 1st Round matches at Flushing Meadows in the decade, making her final appearance in New York during qualifying in 2015 at age 44, twenty-six years after her Open debut in 1989. The reached the quarterfinals in 1993 and '94.
* - Canada's Rebecca Marino posted a 1st Round win over Ksenia Pervak in her slam debut, losing to Venus Williams (who was very complimentary of her game) a round later. Marino won four slam MD matches in '11, but lost in the 1st Round in her return to New York. She hasn't recorded a slam MD win since. She lost in the opening round in Australia in 2012-13, then was in retirement due to issues with depression from 2013-17. Marino returned to tennis in 2018, and has had success on the challenger level, but has yet to return to a slam MD (losing in '19 qualifying for the AO and RG).
* - 1st Round losers in 2010 included Li Na (who'd go on to win two major titles), Angelique Kerber (who'd reach the semis in '11 and win the Open title in '16), CoCo Vandeweghe ('17 SF) and Roberta Vinci (to Venus Williams to fall to 1-8 in her U.S. Open career, only to then go 22-7 there the rest of her career, reaching the final in '15).
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Vania King & Yaroslava Shvedova, after staving off MP in two different matches, claimed their second straight slam title.
In the 3rd Round, Iveta Benesova & Barbora Strycova had held a MP in a 3-hour, 7-6(9)/3-6/7-6(9) win by King/Shvedova, who then came back from MP down in the 3rd set of the final (played over two days due to rain) to defeat Liezel Huber & Nadia Petrova 2-6/6-4/7-6(4).
Huber also reached the Mixed final, teaming with Bob Bryan to defeat Kveta Peschke & Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi 4 & 4. It would be Huber's sixth of seven career slam titles (5 WD/2 MX), as she'd returned to NYC in 2011 (this time w/ Lisa Raymond by her side) and win a rematch against King/Shvedova in the Open women's doubles final.
===============================================
In what was the third all-Russian junior slam final ever -- after Krasnoroutskaya/Petrova at the '99 U.S. and Dushevina/Sharapova at Wimbledon in '02 -- #1-seed Dasha Gavrilova defeated unseeded Yulia Putintseva 6-2/6-2 in the final. In 2012, Putintseva would begin to represent Kazakhstan, while Gavrilova would begin to play under the Australian flag in 2015. No Hordette has reached the U.S. Open junior final since, while it'd be five years ('15 RG - Zhuk/Blinkova) before two Russians would again face off in a girls final in a major.
In the semifinals, Gavrilova had defeated Sloane Stephens, the only player in the girls singles draw who'd go on to win the women's title (2017) in New York during the decade (heading into '19). Stephens had posted previous wins over Elina Svitolina (3rd Rd.) and Karolina Pliskova (QF). She went on to team with Timea Babos in the doubles, with the duo taking their third straight GD major via a walkover in the final over An-Sophie Mestach & Silvia Njiric. The #3 seeds, Babos/Stephens, had knocked off #1 Gavrilova/Khromacheva in the semis. Babos also reached the Australian Open girls doubles final that season.
Esther Vergeer's undefeated run at the U.S. Open continued, as the Dutch legend swept the singles and doubles titles in New York for a fifth straight time.
Vergeer had been tested by France's Florence Alix-Gravellier in the 1st Round, winning 7-5/7-5. She only lost one game combined in the semis and final, securing the title with a double-bagel win over Aussie Daniela Di Toro in the final.
Vergeer teamed with countrywoman Sharon Walaraven to win the doubles, defeating Di Toro & Aniek Van Koot in the final by a 3 & 3 score. Again, the closest match for Vergeer featured Alix-Gravellier. She and Jiske Griffioen had made their opening match-up tight(er) at 6-4/6-4. A former world #2 (in 2006), Alix-Gravellier was playing in her final career event in the '10 U.S. Open.
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CITY SIGHTS:
Venus Williams' many outfit changes...
Sister in the stands...
Sharapova's turqoise-and-black (I'd forgotten about this one, but, I must say that it's right up there with the green-and-white adidas outfits from the '17 RG -- the ones worn by *both* Ostapenko and Halep in the final, which for once didn't annoy me at all -- as maybe my favorite of the entire slam decade)...
And Maria's blue-and-black faux tuxedo look...
Nadia Petrova's rather busy outfit doesn't wear all too well (then or now)...
After having "BELIEVE" on her shoes during her magical '09 QF run, Melanie Oudin went with "COURAGE" in 2010...
"Perfect blondes" aren't all they're cracked up to be. To paraphrase the opening line of every Kiss concert, "You asked for the best, well, too bad... this is what you got."
I can't say that I'm surprised.
Even in my blurry-eyed late-night post about Friday's semifinals, the forthcoming arrival of this non-competitive primer (otherwise known as the 2010 U.S. Open Women's Singles final) for all the WTA detractors who'll spend the next few months bemoaning the state of the WTA's lacking game was crystal clear.
I will send one good thought through the blogosphere for repeat Open champ Kim Clijsters, though. At least she had the sense to be merciful on Saturday night. Not to her so-called opponent Vera Zvonarera, who bore no resemblance to the woman who played her way into the final but a great deal like the queue of slam-less players who've spent the last few years throwing up all over themselves in grand slam finals (you know, the way Clijsters use to), but to everyone who had to watch this we-waited-two-weeks-for-THIS? "battle." At least we didn't have to spend multiple hours awaiting our collective execution like we did on Friday.
Oh, and here's where we give a special thanks to Zvonareva for her (cough, cough) "participation" in this primetime "event" (really, the USTA needs to chuck this nighttime women's final for a while... it's doing the sport more harm than good since it's never anything to write home about). The Russian seemed like she'd already prepared herself to be the runner-up before the match even began. (By the way, who knew you couldn't have a pre-match 9/11 tribute without Chaka Khan? You learn something new every day.) Anyway, apparently, it didn't really matter to her that much that she'd defeated the Belgian in the season's most recent slam in London, not to mention on hard court in Montreal right before the start of the Open, either.
I don't know what it is about Clijsters, but she just brings out the philanthropist in all her Open opponents these days. Serena implodes a year ago. Venus collapses yesterday. Vera decides she has something else more important to do on a Saturday night in the Big Apple (maybe tour the U.N.?). Maybe there's something to all that lovey-dovey gushing that goes on whenever Clijsters' name is brought up. Well, either that or she's a practitioner of black magic and has cast a rather powerful spell on her opponents on Ashe Stadium. I'm still on the fence on the one, I think.
Oh, I guess I HAVE to talk about the MATCH now, huh? All right, if I have to.
In short, Clijsters got a break to go up 4-2 in the 1st. With Zvonareva winning about 20% of her 2nd serve points (at least I think that's what the CBS on-screen stat said... I wasn't really watching all that closely), the Belgian won the set 6-2.
You'd think the 2nd set couldn't have been even WORSE... but if you did, you'd have been wrong. Clijsters got a break for a 2-0 lead. She finally faced her first break point of the match in Game #4, but held for 3-1 with an ace. The lead had been extended to 4-1, or maybe 5-1, when CBS put up a on-screen graphic showing the photos of recent grand slam-winning mothers and...
Honestly, I don't know what happened after that. I took that little moment as my clue to bail out of this disaster. The door opened and I made a bee-line through it. I hate re-runs (well, except for Backspin Time Capsules, of course... haha). I finally went online an hour later to see the final score, and I'm sure you're SHOCKED that I was SHOCKED to learn that Zvonareva never won another game. Clijsters won 6-2/6-1, defending her '09 crown, winning her third career Open title and running her Flushing Meadows winning streak to twenty-one matches.
I'm sure the trophy ceremony was just "brilliant," as well. Or, as Mary Carillo so finger-down-your-throatingly described Clijsters' play tonight -- "glistening." I'm sure Jada was especially cute. I'm sure Brian looked as bored as he did every other time he was shown in the friends box this week, too. I expect that Kim practically begged the crowd to applaud for her (probably by making some "ohh, isn't that special" reference to Jada's bedtime or overwhelming energy... since those sort of lines have been her specialty all tournament), and the multiple announcers then talked about how she is the most deserving human being on the face of the planet that we have the honor to watch grace the soil as she walks across the fruited plain without getting a nasty corn on her big toe and having to take off her shoe and rub her foot before wiping the sweet sweat from her brow produced by the sun above that has decided that she's so wonderful that it just had to take the time to attend to her personally.
But, as I said, I hate re-runs (well, except for "M*A*S*H" ones) and I had no interest in watching that episode again. The hilarious "Tuttle" episode, yes. "Kim Does NYC," no.
I will take some solace in the fact, though, that even if I HAD watched, I wouldn't have had to watch Cliff Drysdale literally dissolve into a pile of just-picked daisies at the thought of his "Kimmy Clijsters" winning another title, as he seemed to do at every opportunity this past week on ESPN2. For that, I thank the television no-network-crossovers-allowed (except for Carillo and J-Mac) overlords. While I'm at it, I may as well thank them for "Fringe," too, since I'll be looking forward to its season premiere... coming September 23rd to a local Fox affiliate near you... featuring Sharapova-clone Anna Torv's turn-the-screws role as Alternate Olivia.
Ah, sorry about that last one. I just wanted to be distracted by something that I actually enjoy, rather than dread, while writing this post. You know, like the foregone conclusion that was this shoot-me-now Women's final. You see, while some players can turn a thorough destruction into a tennis clinic that you can't pull your eyes away from -- like, say, people named Serena, Roger or Rafa -- there are others who don't have that particular skill set. Guess which category Kim's in. If you guessed the latter one, then congratulations -- you just had a better night than Vera did. Oh, and let's have a moment of silent regret for all those people who actually paid for a seat at Ashe Stadium tonight, too, thinking that they were going to be lucky enough to see something special. Suckers!
Hmmm, let's see, what else is there to say? Oh, I know...
Blahblahblah... Kim won... blahblahblah. The end.
...so the Belgian defends her title, but will fall from #3 to #5 in the rankings on Monday? Ah, at least one of the Tennis Gods has a wonderful sense of humor.
* - "Every match I win now, it's like winning an entire tournament." - Mirjana Lucic, after getting her first slam MD win since 2002
* - "I just decided to put the word 'COURAGE' this year as something different, and I really think I need to play with courage this year after I had a great run last year." - Melanie Oudin, on having the word "COURAGE" on her shoes after wearing shoes that said "BELIEVE" during her '09 QF run
* - "One of the most devastating moments of my career." - Serena Williams, on missing the U.S. Open
* - "The doctor told me that she didn't think I was going to grow much more. It was a pretty sad day." - Melanie Oudin, on her lack of height
* - "It's definitely the best moment in my life." - Beatrice Capra, during her 3rd Round run in her slam debut
* - "I can't do anything!!" - Jelena Jankovic, to her box during her loss to Kaia Kanepi
* - "It seems like everybody is hitting their stride at thirty. It's the new twenty." - Venus Williams
* - "I can do serve-and-volley, I can play faster, I can play slow and back, it’s a mix. It's like capricciosa pizza. I don’t give you margherita, I give you capricciosa, different kind of ingredients." - Francesca Schiavone
* - "She's been playing some incredible tennis in these past two grand slams. It must be frustrating for her not to be able to play her best level when it was probably most needed." - Kim Clijsters, on final opponent Vera Zvonareva
* - "I don’t think to her it matters too much whether I win or lose still. She sees a trophy and she knows that a trophy is a part of winning. She kind of connects the dots like that but... I'm not going to go tell her, Mommy won the U.S. Open." - Kim Clijsters, on 2-year old daughter Jada's reaction to her winning major titles
Some players are presented with numerous opportunities to claim a slam crown, but that sort of player often wins multiple major crowns during their career. For most others, such opportunities, if they *ever* come, are finite and often fleeting. So capitalizing on those few moments can prove to be the career keystone for those involved.
In 2011, after having failed to grab the crown in Paris a year earlier in what one had every right to believe might be her *only* such chance at slam glory, Samantha Stosur spent two weeks snaking her way way the through U.S. Open draw, often under the cover of darkness and after having been pushed off onto smaller courts. But when she finally got her chance to shine on the biggest stage of them all in the final, she was as good as she'd ever been, or would ever be again.
After having lost in three sets in the QF to eventual U.S. Open champ Kim Clijsters in 2010, Stosur used a series of strong forehands, steady returns and gorgeous low backhands to maneuver her way through a tough draw a year later. It took four MP spread over two sets in the 3rd Round, but Stosur got past Nadia Petrova on Louis Armstrong in three sets in 3:16. A round later on the Grandstand court, despite losing a 17-15 2nd set TB to Maria Kirilenko during which Stosur had five MP (the Russian won three replay challenges in the breaker, with one taking away a MP chance and another *on* MP), the Aussie had MP's #6 & #7 in the 3rd (Kirilenko saved those, too) before finally winning on her eighth attempt. A win over '10 U.S. Open finalist Vera Zvonareva came on Grandstand, as well, the same with a three-set semifinal win over Angelique Kerber.
Finally, Stosur was granted access to Ashe Stadium in order to play in the women's final, where she defeated Serena Williams 6-2/6-3, becoming the only player other than Venus Williams (2) or Maria Sharapova (1) to defeat Serena in 25 slam finals between 1999-2015. While Stosur's service holds and forehand controlled the match vs. a listless Williams, the match was marred/sparked by chair umpire Eva Asderaki enforcing a "hindrance" penalty on Serena early in the 2nd set when she'd yelled "Come on!" in the middle of a point after hitting what seemed to be a clean winner, before Stosur had been able to lunge and clip the ball with her racket frame. Asderaki took the point away from Williams, causing her to be broken, sparking a mini-resurgence from Serena, as well as a diatribe directed at Asderaki during a changeover in which she called her "a hater" who was "unattractive (on the) inside."
Stosur ultimately weathered the storm, hitting her 20th winner of the match on MP. The win maintained what had been a a pattern in Stosur's "practice makes perfect" career in which it took her a bit longer to get where she desired than, say, someone such as Williams. While Serena found success early, winning at the Open at 17 in 1999 and going 5-1 in the first six tour finals of her career that season, Stosur went 0-5 in tour finals over four seasons before finally raising her first singles trophy in '09 at age 24. Stosur had to become a #1 doubles player first, THEN get her singles footing. She had to fail in big moments, and see her tennis future possibly flash before her eyes when she lost parts of two seasons to Lyme Disease in 2007-08, before finally reaching her career height. While Serena won her first slam title in just her seventh attempt, it took Stosur thirty-four, at the time the third-longest "training period" in WTA history for a major champion.
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Serena's appearance in the final had come in just her second slam back since returning from foot injuries in a German club following her '10 Wimbledon win and, later, a pulmonary embolism. After a Round of 16 loss at Wimbledon, Williams had hit her stride on summer hard courts, taking the Stanford title in her third overall event back, winning the U.S. Open Series, and going 18-0 in North America leading into the U.S. Open final.
She'd entered the Sunday final already in an irritated mood after experiencing what had been a rain-plagued tournament with many scheduling snafus. She'd played a late match on Saturday night and said she did not get to sleep until 4:30 a.m., five hours after the end of her match. “I definitely think that is not the best way to plan for the final,” Williams said on Sunday.
During the match, she seemed lethargic, even lopsided, favoring a sore right toe. But by the end of the final, contested on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 in New York City, any lingering injury, fatigue or memories of her three previous title runs in New York weren't top of mind. Instead, Williams had managed to resurrect the memory her *last* Open appearance in '09, when she'd been called for a foot fault in her semifinal loss to Kim Clijsters, leading to an outburst at a lineswoman during which she threatened to "kill" her and stuff a ball down her throat, leading to her being DQ'd on MP. While this incident didn't rise to the level of offense of the previous one, it did further establish a certain "behavioral pattern."
This time, the "hindrance" call led Serena to immediately assail Asderaki, saying, "Aren’t you the one who screwed me over last time? (if referring to the '09 semi, *that* umpire was Louise Engzell, not Asderaki) Are you coming after me? That is totally not cool.” Then, at the next changeover, she went after her again, saying, “Don’t even look at me. You’re a hater. You’re very unattractive inside. I never complain. Who would do such a thing? You’re punishing me for expressing my emotion.”
After the match, Serena professed to not remember saying any of it, though she later admitted (via Twitter) to letting her emotions get the best of her.
The incident wouldn't be the last in the decade at Flushing Meadows involving Williams and an on-court official to leave a lingering bad taste that took the focus away from the actual champion. It would take seven years, but there *would* eventually be another.
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2010 women's champ Kim Clijsters, still without a loss at Flushing Meadows since 2003, missed the Open with an abdominal injury.
It was the Belgian's second straight slam missed due to injury in '11, and she was the second '10 major winner (S.Williams/AO) to not attempt to defend her title the following season. Clijsters ultimately wouldn't play in three of four majors (playing only the '12 AO in the 12-month stretch), and announce that that she'd retire for a final time at the conclusion of her participation in the 2012 U.S. Open.
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World #92 Angelique Kerber, who'd only reached the 3rd Round twice before in fifteen career slam MD appearances (and had lost four straight times in the 1st Round), was a surprise maiden slam semifinalist. She defeated an error-prone Flavia Pennetta in three sets in the QF to become the first German woman to reach the U.S. Open semis since Steffi Graf in 1996.
Joining Kerber in the semis was Caroline Wozniacki, once again the #1 seed, who posted at least a Final Four result in New York for a third straight year (RU-SF-SF). The Dane had lost just one set en route to the semis, overcoming a 7-6/4-1 deficit in the Round of 16 against Svetlana Kuznetsova. She lost in straights in the semis to Serena Williams.
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Despite being unseeded for the first time in fourteen years, Venus Williams still had the respect of the tournament schedulers, as she opened the Day 1 night session on Ashe Stadium against Vesna Dolonts in the 1st Round. Dolonts had arrived in New York on a late flight after experiencing visa issues while trying to travel to the U.S. from Russia. Venus won 6-4/6-3. Before her 2nd Round match, though, Williams withdrew from her match against Sabine Lisicki with the announcement that she'd been diagnosed with Sjogren's syndrome, an autoimmune disease which causes fatigue and muscle and joint pain. At the time, it was felt that her career might be in jeopardy.
The exit was the earliest in her first twelve appearances at the Open, a run which had included two titles, two runner-ups, four semifinals, two quarterfinals and two Round of 16 finishes. The exit also meant Williams failed to reach the QF at any major in a season for the first time in her career (she wouldn't reach the second week of another major until 2015), and her ranking fell from #36 to #105. She'd started the season at #5, and hadn't ranked outside the Top 100 since 1997.
Williams didn't play another match that season (in all, she had just eleven in the '11 season), and wouldn't again until March of 2012.
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With a 5.8 earthquake hitting the U.S. east coast a week before the start of play at Flushing Meadows (somewhat famously, and hardly surprisingly, Jelena Jankovic had been on court playing Elena Vesnina in New Haven at the time), and Hurricane Irene coming ashore on the tournament's eve (the grounds were closed by the USTA on Saturday), one somewhat expected weird things to happen once play began.
The notion wasn't wrong.
Right out of the gate, with the Australian Open champ (Clijsters) already having pulled out of the event, the reigning Roland Garros (Li Na) and Wimbledon (Petra Kvitova) champs lost in the 1st Round in New York for the first time ever.
Both lost to Romanians, as #5 Kvitova (w/ 52 unforced errors and a 49% First Serve percentage) was the first seed ousted, upset by Alexandra Dulgheru 7-6/6-3, while #6 Li (50 UE) fell to Simona Halep 6-2/7-5. It was future #1 and multi-slam winner Halep's first U.S. Open win, and the first Top 10 win of her career.
Draw notes:
* - in her first U.S. Open MD appearance, 18-year old Sloane Stephens survived a 1st Round match in which Reka-Luca Jani twice served for the match (and held a mini-break lead in a 3rd set TB) to record her first career win at a major, then upset #23 seed Shahar Peer. Stephens lost in the 3rd Round to Ana Ivanovic.
Meanwhile, 16-year old Madison Keys made her slam MD debut after earning her way in by having won the USTA's Wild Card Tournament. She defeated veteran Jill Craybas in the 1st Round, then lost a round later to #27 Lucie Safarova in three sets. Keys had led the match 6-3/2-1, and was serving up 4-3 in the 3rd. Keys, as the #12 seed, lost in the 2nd Round in the junior competition to Canada's Francoise Abanda.
Six years later, good friends Stephens and Keys would face off in the women's singles final at Flushing Meadows.
* - in the 1st Round, #12 Aga Radwanska defeated her sister Urszula, who'd reached the MD after making her way through qualifying. Aga won 6-2/6-3 in the sisters' only match-up in slam competition, and the third of just four meetings in tour-level competition in their careers. They played against one another for the final time in Sydney in January 2012, and never again until Aga's retirement after the 2018 season.
* - Italian Flavia Pennetta (#26) reached the QF for the third time in four years, following up a win over #3 Maria Sharapova with another in the Round of 16 over #13 Peng Shuai.
Against Peng, Pennetta battled sickness in the humid conditions and nearly vomited on court. After failing to close out the match when serving up 6-4/6-5, 30/love Pennetta fell behind 5-0 and 6-2 in the 2nd set TB, but saved four SP and won 8-6 to close out the match in two sets when Peng committed a volley error.
Pennetta lost in the quarters to Angelique Kerber, but would carry her New York momentum through the rest of her playing career during the decade. From 2008-15, she went 30-6 in U.S. Open play, posting six of her seven career QF+ results in majors, and ended her slam career by winning the women's title in 2015.
* - Sania Mirza, who'd put on a star-making Round of 16 run in her 2005 debut at age 18, made her last U.S. Open appearance in women's singles, losing to Shahar Peer.
As it turned out, the Indian's 4th Round result in '05 had been a one-time thing, her only such singles result in her slam career. With her 1st Round U.S. exit in '11 (as well as in the '12 AO), Mirza went 15-22 in slam singles play after her initial 6-4 campaign in the 2005 majors.
A doubles specialist the rest of her playing days, Mirza went on to carry out what is arguably (or could eventually be) a Hall of Fame career. While setting all sorts of tennis marks for a woman from her nation, Mirza has won three WD slams (incl. U.S. '15), three MX crowns (U.S. '14), two WTA Finals, and five Premier Mandatory crowns. In all, she's totaled 41 WTA doubles titles (to go along with one singles crown in '05), reached eleven slam WD/MX finals and was the first Indian woman ranked #1 when she moved atop the doubles rankings in April 2015.
Mirza took a break from the tour to have a baby in 2018, but is edging close to a return as the 2019 season nears its end. When she does return, she'll once again be two specific titles away from essentially locking up a HoF berth. She needs only a RG women's doubles title to complete a Career Doubles Slam, and the MX at Wimbledon to do the same in the other doubles discipline.
* - in a spirited 2nd Round clash during which she seemed to channel the likes of Open crowd favorite Jimmy Connors, the U.S.'s Irina Falconi upset #14 Dominika Cibulkova, rallying from a 4-1, double-break deficit in the 3rd set. In a match moved to Ashe Stadium from Court 11 after the cancelation of the Venus Williams (w/d) match, Cibulkova twice served for the win at 5-4 and 6-5.
* - in a 2nd Round rematch of the 2010 U.S. Open 2nd Rounder during which Victoria Azarenka collapsed just seven games into play, Azarenka this time defeated Gisela Dulko 6-4/6-3.
While Azarenka would lose a round later to Serena Williams, she'd win the next two Australian Opens *and* reach the next two U.S. Open finals during the best stretch of her career. In a 10-slam stretch from mid-2011 until the end of '13, Azarenka reached four slam finals (2-2), three other major semis, held the #1 ranking for 51 weeks, and won two Olympic medals ('12 MX Gold and singles Bronze). From 2014 until the start of the '19 U.S. Open, she's yet to reach another semi in a slam event.
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After coming back from match point down to win the Open doubles title a year earlier, Vania King & Yaroslava Shvedova found out how the other half lives in 2011 at Flushing Meadows. They didn't have a match point against Liezel Huber and Lisa Raymond in the doubles final, but they did lead 6-4/5-3 and served at 5-4 for their third major crown in five slams entered as a team. Huber & Raymond ended up winning the match 4-6/7-6/7-6, giving Huber her first slam WD crown since her break-up with partner Cara Black, while it was 38-year old Raymond's first major title of any kind since 2006 and gave her U.S. Open championship runs in three different decades (w/ '96 MX, '01 WD/'02 MX/'05 WD).
While 19-year old 2009 quarterfinalist Melanie Oudin's days of singles success in majors had already become a thing of the past (whether she knew it or not), the Georgie native produced arguably her *best* career moment in the '11 MX competition, teaming with Jack Sock to win the only major title of her career while defeating top seeds (and defending champs) Huber & Bob Bryan in the 2nd Round, then Gisela Dulko & Eduardo Schwank in the final. Oudin and her various playing partners never won more than one match in any of the other 23 WD/MX slam draws in which she appeared in her career.
In the juniors, Grace Min defeated #1-seed Caroline Garcia 7-5/7-6 in the final to become (with Coco Vandeweghe in '08) just the second Bannerette to win the U.S. Open's junior title since 1995. She also defeated the #2 seed, Irina Khromacheva, in the 2nd Round.
The junior defending champ, Dasha Gavrilova, had lost in the 2nd Round to the U.S.'s Vicky Duval, who'd be taken out by Garcia in the quarterfinals. The Pasty defeated #3-seed Ash Barty in the semis to reach the final. Min's semifinal opponent was qualifier Nicole Gibbs, who'd upset #4 Genie Bouchard, wild card Taylor Townsend and #6 Yulia Putintseva (the '10 U.S. girls runner-up) to reach the final four. Gibbs would go on to become a two-time NCAA women's singles champ at Stanford in 2012-13.
Demi Schuurs & Khromacheva (NED/RUS) defeated the all-U.S. duo of Gaby Andrews & Townsend to win the girls doubles. The title run was Schuurs second at a major in 2011, as the Dutch teen had reached all four junior slam finals that season while playing with four different partners: An-Sophie Mestach (AO W), Victoria Kan (RG RU), Tang Hao-chen (WI RU) and Khromacheva.
For Khromacheva, it was her second '11 junior doubles slam win, following her RG title run with Maryna Zanevska. Over a nearly two-year stretch in 2010-12, Khromacheva would reach five major GD finals (as well as in the '11 Wimbledon girls singles) with five different partners, winning three.
In the final U.S. Open appearance (she continued to play through the summer of '12, but there was no U.S. Open wheelchair competition due to the Paralympics), Esther Vergeer completed her sixth sweep of the singles and doubles titles at Flushing Meadows, maintaining her career-long undefeated record in the event. Along with a 6-2/6-1 win over Dutch countrywoman Aniek Van Koot in the singles final, she teamed with Sharon Walraven to defeat Van Koot & Jiske Griffioen in three sets to claim the four-Dutch-strong doubles championship match.
Vergeer finished 18-0 in singles and 12-0 in doubles in U.S. Open play, winning all 36 of her singles sets and 22 of 23 in doubles.
CITY SIGHTS:
Bethanie Mattek-Sands' stars-and-stripes socks...
Venus Williams' EleVen version of "the little black dress" (w/ white lace)...
Queen Latifah during the 9/11 10th anniversary commemoration ceremony...
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I guess, in the end, this U.S. Open secretly "belonged" to Samantha Stosur all along.
After all, for the past two weeks in New York, the 26-year old Aussie, even while playing second fiddle to other top players when it came to court assignments and media attention that seemingly fated her to be a footnote at this slam, STILL managed to be involved in some of the biggest moments of the tournament. In the 3rd Round, she won the longest-ever women's match at the U.S. Open, then was a part of a women's slam record-breaking 32-point tie-break in the Round of 16 (naturally, even while winning the match, she lost the TB that had made the contest memorable). Come semifinal time, she found herself on the Grandstand court rather than on the grounds' biggest stage. She didn't like it, but no one ever said the Road to New York was going to be easy. Nothing is ever easy for Slingin' Sammy Stosur.
Turns out, she was saving the best for last when she faced off with Serena Williams, the woman who'd entered the Open as the nearly-unanimous odds-on favorite to take the crown. While Sunday afternoon's final was about wrapping up some unfinished slam business from a season ago for Stosur, as she finally played the slam final that she'd failed to in her previous major final in Paris last year, for Serena, well... when someone figures out exactly what Williams' angle was on this day, hopefully they'll be kind enough to fill the rest of us in on the secret.
After dominating opponents on hard court all season, winning all eighteen matches she played after coming back from a nearly year-long health-related absence, Williams didn't have her legs in this match. Or her serve. Or her forehand. Or her composure. Stosur, though, had all HER weapons -- the big kick-serve and forehand prowess, as well as the volley of a former #1 doubles player -- and more, namely the long-in-coming ability to put her head down and avoid losing her nerve. It was a lethal combination that even Serena wasn't able to overcome, save for a brief period early in the 2nd set. In the end, when Stosur pounded a forehand winner on match point to nip Williams in the final total winner numbers (20-19), the fact was that the Aussie's 6-2/6-3 victory, the seventeenth consecutive straights sets women's final at the Open, was hardly that close.
Stosur's point streak hit thirteen before it finally ended with a forehand error off the net cord, but a winner off a Williams second gave Stosur two more chances to break in the opening game of the 2nd set. Serena erased one chance with an ace, then finally discovered the one thing that could (briefly) break her free of her gameday lethargy -- anger. After smacking a big forehand that appeared to be about to become a winner, Williams let out a celebratory howl. Thing is, she did it before Stosur was able to completely make a play on the ball. When she got her racket on Williams' shot, Serena's celebration was thwarted when chair umpire Eva Azderaki pointed to the "intentional hinderance" rule to award the point to Stosur. Rather than being deuce, the Aussie got the break to lead 1-0.
And Serena was having none of it. Not being fully aware of the rules (Azderaki's move was the correct one, according to the sport's guidelines), Williams immediately launched into the umpire for her "wrong" decision, calling her actions, among other things, "totally not cool." No one watching could avoid, even in some small way, making the connection to the big scene Serena was involved in the '09 Open semifinals, when a foot-fault call led to a point-penalty on match point and a controversy that still lingers in the air, if only because the sincerity of Williams' contrition is easy for many to question. Williams didn't threaten to shove any tennis balls in any areas in which they shouldn't go this time around, after all.
Serena did use her newly-peeved attitude to pump up herself and her play, though, stoking the crowd and leading observers to believe that the championship would turn on that one moment. Williams, perhaps trying for the starring role in "Mad Serena Beyond Thunderdome," quickly went up 40/love on a rattled Stosur's serve. The Aussie got her act together in time to win a beautiful exchange of eye-to-eye volleys to save one break point. Serena still got the break of serve for 1-1, but Stosur had managed to throw herself a lifeline at the most important moment in the important match of her career.
Williams held for 2-1, then carried over her displeasure to -- and through -- the changeover. Berating Azderaki throughout, but not involving her in any direct discussion (she implored her to not even look at her, even if they passed each other in the hallway), and going on about her not being able to express herself and, last time she checked, still being an American and having the right to do so. It wasn't exactly a mature, admirable moment in Williams' career, but it would have been looked upon as the "fire of a champion" had she been able to maintain her level of pique while continuing to raise the level of her game, as well.
But that didn't happen.
When the Aussie led 5-3, and was up 40/15 on the Williams serve, Serena managed to save two match points, but it was too little too late. Stosur's forehand winner (#20) officially ended things, making her 2011's fourth different slam champion, and third different first-time slam major winner.
As sterling as Stosur's afternoon was, it was even more unexpected, and not just because Williams was figured to be ready to romp (even after the late finish of her semifinal victory over Caroline Wozniacki Saturday night), with possibly the Aussie being able to (maybe) make things close. While Serena had starred on the sport's biggest stages, Stosur had usually wilted under the weight of the attention and expectations that come with such circumstances. But THAT Stosur wasn't on Ashe court in the final, just as she wasn't in New York the past two weeks. The "old" Sammy would have folded in the face of Serena's would-be onslaught in the 2nd set, but the "older" Sam, once she took a step back to regain her bearings, was having none of it. That "wrist message" she left herself a while back -- "attitude" and "composure" -- must still be lingering somewhere inside her head.
Displaying strength where there once was weakness -- between the ears -- the Aussie never allowed the aura of Williams to intimidate her, nor the thirteen-time slam winner's induced-by-anger moments to overwhelm and wash away all that she'd worked so hard to turn in her favor. Instead, she allowed herself to play HER game, not Serena's, unlike all the other players Williams has dominated in NYC and points west over the last two months. She didn't struggle to hold her serve in the early going, preventing Williams from racing to an early, suffocating lead. With Serena failing to gain momentum from the outset, and her groundstrokes lacking the usual penetration that she's used to prevent opponents from seizing control of rallies, Stosur wasn't pressured to deviate from her original, preferred gameplan. Not wanting to be pushed off the court ala Wozniacki one night before, Stosur wasn't afraid to step in and cut off Williams' groundstrokes. It not only kept her forehand "in play," but she was able to wield it like a deadly weapon to pulverize Serena all day as Williams oddly never found a way to alleviate its potency by attacking the Aussie's weaker backhand wing. Essentially, Stosur did exactly what she did while defeating both Williams and Justine Henin on the clay at Roland Garros in '10, but then proceeded to NOT do against Francesca Schiavone in her maiden slam final.
So, given a second chance on the big stage, Stosur didn't waste her opportunity once again. It's something of a pattern in Stosur's career, where "practice has made perfect"... even if it takes her a bit longer to get where she desires. ...Stosur went 0-5 in tour finals over four seasons before finally raising her first singles trophy in '09 at age 24. Stosur had to become a #1 doubles player first, THEN get her singles footing. She had to fail in big moments, and see her tennis future possibly flash before her eyes when she lost parts of two seasons to Lyme Disease in 2007-08. ...It took Stosur thirty-four (slam appearances), the third-longest "training period" in WTA history for a major champion.
But none of that matters now. For one day on Ashe court in New York, Stosur was THE best player in the world. Just like Australia's thirty-one year drought of women's slam champs, and thirty-eight year absence of a female U.S. Open winner, anything troubling that came before was all washed away on one afternoon.
One brilliant afternoon, that is.
* - "I just remember that I lost, and that was that. I got really popular, a lot of people were telling me I was, like, super cool, that they never saw me so intense." - Serena Williams, recalling her last appearance at the U.S. Open in 2009, which included her being defaulted on MP from her SF match vs. Kim Clijsters after threatening to kill a lineswoman after she called her for a foot fault
* - "In kindergarten, I sang 'Peanut Butter Jelly" in a talent show and I was amazing." - Sloane Stephens, on a childhood memory
* - "For me as a person, I'm not feeling different (than) before Wimbledon. But I know people recognize me, and everything around me is a little different... I don't like too much the attention, (but) it's important for the WTA, the tournament and for everybody." - reigning Wimbledon champ Petra Kvitova
* - "We were in America last time I checked. ...Don't look at me! ...If we're ever walking down the street, stay on the other side. You're totally out of control. You're a hater and you're unattractive inside. What a loser... And I don't complain." - Serena Williams, berating chair umpire Eva Asderaki during a changeover in the final after she'd called her for a "hindrance" violation and awarded a point to Sam Stosur after Williams had yelled "Come on!" in exultation in the middle of a point believing that she'd hit a winner
* - "The chair umpire made a correct call under the intentional hindrance rule." - tournament referee Brian Earley
* - "My emotions did get the best of me this past weekend when I disagreed with the umpire." - Serena Williams, post-final (via Twitter)
* - "I think I had one of my best days. I was very fortunate to be able to do it on this stage in New York. I've been dreaming about this since I was 10, since I knew what a grand slam was. I do want to say, Serena, you are a great player and a fantastic champion and you have done wonders for our sport." - Samantha Stosur
* - "That's everything you would ever want to do in a moment like that. I couldn't have dreamed of playing a better match." - Samantha Stosur
Of all the summers in all the seasons in all of her playing years, Serena Williams walked into the summer of 2012 and left it having produced what was likely the greatest contained, short-term stretch of tennis of her entire career as she followed up her Wimbledon and Olympic title runs by coming back home to win the U.S. Open for the first time in four years. Motivated like never before, the run *officially* began her more-focused assault on tennis history.
While her Gold medal run in London may have been Serena Williams' best single event performance, perhaps of her entire career (in six matches, she dropped a total of seventeen games, and never more than three in any of the twelve sets she played as she defeated three Top 10 players -- Wozniacki, Sharapova and Azarenka, the latter two the #3 and #1-ranked players in the world -- en route), her U.S. Open run to finish off her brilliant summer campaign was nearly as impressive.
Her 15th career slam gave Williams her fourth U.S. Open crown, and made her just the third woman (Graf '88, Venus '00) to win Wimbledon, the Olympics and the U.S. Open in one single summer. She was the first to win Wimbledon and the Open back-to-back since *she* last did it in 2002. En route to the women's final, Serena lost a total of nineteen games through six rounds, winning twenty-three straight games in one stretch from 4-4 in the 3rd Round (vs. Ekaterina Marakova), including a double-bagel of Andrea Hlavackova in the Round of 16, through a 3-0 lead vs. Ana Ivanovic in the quarterfinals.
It wouldn't be *that* easy, though. In the final vs. world #1 Victoria Azarenka, Williams was taken to three sets (a first for a final at Flushing Meadows since 1995) and saw the Belarusian get within two points of the title (30/30 on Serena's serve at 5-3) before serving for the match at 5-4 in the 3rd. Williams ultimately won 6-2/2-6/7-5, sweeping the last four games.
It was the seventh time that Williams had won a major title after having come back from the brink of defeat along the way, with an opponent either holding a MP or serving for the win.
After losing to Virginie Razzano in the 1st Round of Roland Garros in the spring, Williams closed out her season by winning five singles and two doubles titles, a pair of Gold medals, Wimbledon, the U.S. Open and WTA Finals, compiling a 31-1 mark in singles to go along with a 13-1 run in doubles. Even with that, though, she finished #3 in the season-ending rankings.
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While Azarenka retained her #1 ranking following her loss in the final, her near-miss with claiming the U.S. Open title left her short of becoming the first player since 1997 (Martina Hingis) to win *both* hard court slams in the same season. No woman would pull off the feat again until Angelique Kerber did it in 2016.
After winning Bronze (singles) and Gold (mixed doubles) medals at the London Olympics had stoked her fires once again after a disappointing clay season, Azarenka's U.S. Open final run included wins over defending Open champ Samantha Stosur (in a 3rd set TB) and 2012 RG winner Maria Sharapova (after trailing by a set and a break). She'd won her maiden slam at the Australian Open in January (and would defend the title in '11) and, with a helpful assist (it seemed) from new boyfriend/extrovert/music star Redfoo, had learned how to have a bit more "fun" on court, shuffling her way through the draw while entertaining the NYC crowds.
Azarenka's Flushing Meadows performance provided more evidence of a change in the Belarusian's on-court demeanor leading to a better ability to relax, resulting in even greater on-court success. She finished 2012 with a 69-10 record and the only season-ending #1 ranking of her career.
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It was a late summer of highs and lows for Maria Sharapova. She won an Olympic medal (Silver) and became a candy seller (Sugarpova debuted a week before the start of the Open), but went public with her broken wedding engagement to Slovenian basketball player Sasha Vujacic.
Due to a stomach virus, Sharapova played no summer hard court events after the grass court Olympics in London. But at Flushing Meadows she played her best under pressure, overcoming fellow Hordette Nadia Petrova in the 4th Round by rallying from a 3rd set deficit after a rain delay, then in the QF finding a path to victory in another rain-marred match vs. Marion Bartoli. The match didn't start until 1:08 a.m., then was stopped again after Bartoli took a 4-0 lead in the 1st set, delaying the finish until the next day. Sharapova came back from a set and a break down to win and reach her first U.S. Open semifinal since winning the title in 2006. Once there, she was out-hit by #1-ranked Azarenka after having led by a set and a break before dropping her first three-set match of the season (she'd been 12-0).
Overall, though, the U.S. Open further paved the way for a season in which Sharapova posted the highest match win total (60) of her career, matched her best season-ending ranking (#2) and completed her Career Slam with her first title run at Roland Garros.
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Having come out of retirement in 2009, Kim Clijsters immediately re-wrote her career bio at Flushing Meadows, adding to her lone "KC 1.0" slam title ('05 U.S.) with wins in NYC in '09 and '10, as well as Melbourne in '11. By 2012, the Belgian's impact on the tour had started to lessen as the same sort of injuries that initially drove her from the sport began to take her off the court once again. She missed three of four slams from 2011-12, and announced that she'd end her career following the U.S. Open.
The #23 seed, Clijsters' stay in the draw was a short one. After opening Night 1 with a win over 16-year old bespectacled Bannerette Vicky Duval to extend her U.S. Open winning streak to 22 straight dating back to '05 (and without a loss since '03), she was upset by British teen Laura Robson (#89) in the 2nd Round, 7-6/7-6, during the day session on Ashe Stadium.
Clijsters wasn't *totally* finished, though, as she was entered in the Doubles and Mixed, as well. Partnering Kirsten Flipkens, the all-Waffle pair lost in the 1st Round to Zhang Shuai & Chuang Chia-jung; while she and Bob Bryan fell in the MX 2nd Round to Ekaterina Makarova & Bruno Soares in a 12-10 3rd set match TB on Court 17, after having saved four MP and Clijsters pulling off a picture-perfect lob winner (down 9-10) in the closing moments.
And, thus, Clijsters walked away once and for all, never publicly shedding a tear or seeming for even one instant to regret her decision. After all, her work here was done.
Of course, then the recently re-retired Justine Henin announced that *she* was pregnant before the end of the tournament, getting one final "last headline victory" in their career-long tĂŞte-Ă -tĂŞte. Having ended her second career a season earlier, Henin also managed to beat Clijsters into the Hall of Fame, being a part of the 2016 class a year before her countrywoman followed her into the Newport shrine in '17.
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Draw notes:
* - keeping pace with the previous weather issues associated with the Open in recent years, the USTA grounds were evacuated due to a tornado on September 8, leading to the tournament being extended a day and the women's final being played on Sunday for the fourth time in five years.
* - after reaching a final and two semis from 2009-11 in New York, Caroline Wozniacki (nursing a knee injury) was upset in the 1st Round by Irina-Camelia Begu, 6-2/6-2. The #1 seed at the event the last two years, the loss caused the #8-seeded Dane to fall out of the Top 10 for the first time in three years.
* - As impressive as eighteen year old Laura Robson's win over Clijsters was, her no-letdown win over #9 Li Na one round later was even more so. Before knocking out the former grand slam winners, and ending KC's 22-match U.S. Open winning streak, Robson had just one Top 25 win in her career, and just two MD slam wins. Perhaps carrying over her momentum gained from winning Mixed doubles Silver at the Olympics (w/ Andy Murray), she reached the Round of 16 at Flushing Meadows, becoming the first British woman to reach the 4th Round at a major since Samantha Smith did it at Wimbledon in 1998.
* - after going seventeen majors without doing so since winning Roland Garros in 2008, Ana Ivanovic finally reached another slam quarterfinal.
Meanwhile, Tsvetana Pironkova, who lost to AnaIvo in the Round of 16, reached such a stage at a non-Wimbledon slam for the first time in her career. She'd only do it one other time -- in Paris in 2016.
Another of Ivanovic's victims (3rd Rd.) along the way was Sloane Stephens, who nonetheless posted wins over #22 Francesca Schiavone and Tatjana Malek (later Maria) to record her second 3rd Round result at the Open in her first two MD appearances.
* - a year after pulling out of the draw in the 2nd Round in the wake of her Sjogren's diagnosis, Venus Williams was back. After ending her '11 campaign in NYC, Williams had finished the year at #103. She didn't start her '12 season until Miami in March, but same into the Open having reached the Cincinnati semis (w/ two Top 10 wins), her best result in nearly two years ('10 U.S. SF). Ranked #46, she defeated Bethanie Mattek-Sands in the 1st Round before falling in three sets to #6 Angelique Kerber in the 2nd. Williams led 4-2 in the final set before the German rallied to win it 7-5, with the match ending at 12:20 in the morning. She wouldn't play singles again until October, ending her season by taking the title in Luxembourg.
* - in 2011, the unexpected Bannerette first week star turned out to be wild card Mallory Burdette. The 20-year old Georgia native earned her maiden slam MD berth by winning the USTA's WC challenge, taking a pair of challenger events in the summer (including a $100K event in Vancouver). She posted U.S. Open wins over Timea Bacsinszky and Lucie Hradecka before falling to #3 Maria Sharapova in the 3rd Round.
The result was enough to convince Burdette to give up her final year of college eligibility at Stanford and turn pro. At Stanford, Burdette was a two-time All-American, '12 NCAA women's singles championship runner-up and part of the Cardinal's 2010 National Championship squad. She won a match in Melbourne in her Australian Open debut in '13, made her Wimbledon debut in the summer and climbed as high as #68 that year. After losing in the 1st Round in her return to Flushing Meadows (to Svetlana Kuznetsova), Burdette played in what turned out to be her final career match in Quebec City the week after the Open (ending with her eighth straight loss), as a lingering shoulder injury cost her her '14 season and ultimately led to her retirement from the sport in October of that year. The decision wasn't necessarily because of the injury and the effort that would be needed to re-climb the tennis ladder, though, as it was due more to her interest in the sport waning while she was away and began to focus on other things. She decided to return to Stanford to get her Psychology degree.
As she recounted in a 2016 interview on the tour website, "It was going to be really tough to come back from injury... I was at about 85% and I was about to get back out there and start hitting. As I went through that process I was not as excited about getting back on the court. There were other things that I got into while I was injured. I was studying more. I started to really enjoy that other stuff. There just wasn't that same fire there. I wasn't going to do it half-way."
Burdette is currently a Doctoral Student Therapist at Oglethorpe University in Brookhaven, Georgia just outside Atlanta.
* - Firsts of note...
SLAM MD APPEARANCE: Garbine Muguruza (at 18, with a 1st Rd. loss to Sara Errani), Elina Svitolina (at 17, as the youngest qualifier, she lost in the 1st Rd. to Ivanovic) and Vicky Duval (the 16-year lost on Night 1 to Clijsters, then reached the girls semis)
FIRST SLAM MD WIN: Kristina Mladenovic (as a WC, the 19-year old ended her 0-7 career start by posting wins over Marina Erakovic and #17 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova to reach the 3rd Rd.)
FIRST U.S. OPEN MD APPEARANCE: Kiki Bertens (def. #21 Christina McHale) and Johanna Konta (as a qualifier, the Brit knocked off Timea Babos)
* - while they more often shined in Paris during the decade, the Italians found a receptive environment on and off court in New York during the 2010's, as well. In 2012, we got a preview of some of the heroics soon to become reality at the Open.
Only a few months past her appearance in the Roland Garros singles final, Sara Errani reached the semis at Flushing Meadows, becoming the first Italian to reach a major semi outside of Paris. Errani defeated #6 Angelique Kerber in the Round of 16, then countrywoman Roberta Vinci in the QF before losing to Serena Williams. Still, for Vinci, it was her first slam QF result after eleven years on tour and thirty-one MD appearances in majors.
The two then combined to win the doubles, losing just one set en route (to Mattek-Sands/Mirza in the 3rd Rd.) before defeating Andrea Hlavackova & Lucie Hradecka in the final, claiming their second major title and becoming the first all-Italian duo to win in New York. Errani rose to doubles #1 after the tournament. Vinci followed her in October, and then the two shared the top ranking for 42 straight weeks from 2013-14, and ultimately 40 more consecutively later in the '14 season.
Flavia Pennetta missed the '12 U.S. Open with a wrist injury, after having posted three QF results in singles there from 2008-11. Ah, but her best was still to come in the big city.
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In Mixed, Ekaterina Makarova teamed with Bruno Soares to defeat Kveta Peschke & Marcin Matkowski to win a 12-10 match TB in the final and claim the crown. To date, it's Makarova's only MX title to go along with her three career women's doubles slam wins with Elena Vesnina (2013-17).
The '12 U.S. Open marked the first appearance in New York as a duo by Makarova/Vesnina, who'd go on to win the title two years later.
Serena & Venus Williams teamed up in the doubles for the first time at the Open since winning at Flushing Meadows in 2009 (and just the second time since 2001). They lost in the 3rd Round to Maria Kirilenko & Nadia Petrova. The loss was the only thing that prevented Serena from sweeping the singles and doubles at Wimbledon, the Olympics *and* the U.S. Open, a run that would have created a brand new benchmark for summer brilliance for players great and good to strive for for generations to come. (Of course, Serena will likely have one more shot at such a ridiculous achievement come 2020.)
The sisters would only play twice more together at the Open during the decade, posting SF/QF results in 2013-14.
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Wild card Samantha Crawford won the girls singles title, becoming the second straight Bannerette to grab the junior Open crown (a first since 1994-95) and (w/ Taylor Townsend's '12 Australian Open girls win) giving the U.S. a pair of girls slam champs in the same season for the first time since 1992 (Wimbledon: Chanda Rubin, U.S.: Lindsay Davenport).
With Canadian Genie Bouchard's win at Wimbledon, North American girls claimed three of the four major juniors crowns during the season, and four of five titles.
Crawford, who'd beaten fellow U.S. wild card Vicky Duval in the semis, defeated #12-seeded Estonian Anett Kontaveit to take the final. Kontaveit had upset #1 Townsend in the quarterfinals.
Townsend and fellow Bannerette Gabby Andrews (#4 seeds) won the girls doubles, defeating #2 Belinda Bencic/Petra Uberlova in the final. They'd also beaten the #2 seeds -- Anna Danilina/Elizaveta Kulichkova -- in the semis, and bettered their 2011 runner-up GD finish at the Open.
Townsend claimed junior slam doubles titles at the Australian (w/ Andrews), Wimbledon (w/ Bouchard) and the U.S. that season, in addition to her AO singles title run.
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Due to the Paralympic Games being held in London, there was no wheelchair competition at the '12 U.S. Open.
At those Games, Esther Vergeer dominated the competition one final time before calling it a career, sweeping the singles and doubles Golds to increase her all-time lead in tennis medals at the event (7 Golds and 1 Silver), ending with a combined 30-1 (19-0 singles) career Paralympic record. Her win over countrywoman Aniek Van Koot in the Gold Medal match gave her four straight Paralympic singles titles and allowed her to end her playing days on an astounding 470-match winning streak, a stretch which nearly ran for the entire decade.
Jiske Griffioen took the singles Bronze to complete the Dutch sweep of the medals.
In doubles, Vergeer teamed with Marjolein Buis to take the Gold, defeating Silver medalists Griffioen/Van Koot in the final. Brits Lucy Shuker & Jordanne Whiley took the Bronze.
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CITY SIGHTS:
Venus on the court...
Aretha Franklin off-court...
And the birth of Sugarpova (a week before the start of the Open)...
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There have been quite a few entries in the "Theory of Serena" canon over the years, and one of the guiding laws of "Serenativity" has always been, when given the opportunity, never, ever fail to take advantage of it, for it might be the only one that you'll get.
It was a tennis physics lesson that Victoria Azarenka, within two points of becoming the second woman (Martina Hingis in '97) in the last seventeen years to win both hard court slam titles in a single season, was reminded of during in the 2012 U.S. Open women's final.
When the Belarusian world #1 won in Melbourne in January, she did so with the air of an MMA fighter. But on Sunday afternoon in New York City, Azarenka learned that you can't take your foot off the neck of Serena Williams in the 3rd set, because in one move she'll have YOU on your back with HER foot on your throat. And that's essentially what happened in the final four games of the final, as Williams once again escaped from the jaws of defeat to claim her fifteenth career slam crown.
The final wasn't one of the "great matches," as it was portrayed by CBS commentators in its latter stages, but considering the shenanigans we're often seen in U.S. Open finals over the last nearly twenty years, it surely rates as a very good, entertaining contest. Especially the dramatic 3rd set, the first seen in a women's championship match at Flushing Meadows since 1995, and one which helped make this final the longest at the Open since 1981.
A double-fault put Williams in a love/30 hole, then an Azarenka shot jammed her and she was down love/40. Azarenka broke at love for 4-3, then held for 5-3. She got to 30/30 on Serena's serve in game #9 before Williams finally held, giving Vika a chance to serve for her second career slam title.
As she prepared to serve for the match, Azarenka found herself in position to become the first woman to win in Flushing Meadows after having dropped the 1st set in the final since 1994. Even with an AO title on her resume, serving for the U.S. Open was her chance to secure the "signature" win of her young career. Successfully pulling it off would allow her to say she'd personally taken an accounting at this event of all the reigning slam champs (the list, besides Vika herself: Sam Stosur, Maria Sharapova & Serena), and put them all down in head-to-head contests in less than a week. With both herself and Williams vying for the right to be looked upon as THE player of 2012, Azarenka had the heart of the season in her grasp... only to loosen her grip, and see Serena rip it out of her hands.
Twice in her match against Serena at the '10 Australian Open, Azarenka had served for the match, only to fail both times and eventually lose. She was about to experience a severe case of deja vu. At 5-4, Azarenka failed to adhere to the one guiding principle of "Serenativity" -- never, EVER, give Serena a second chance at life. Because she will take it, at your expense, and leave you gasping for air.
Quickly, Azarenka's errors put her down love/40. A final forehand into the net, her third error of the game, allowed Williams to break for 5-5. One game later, Azarenka made a poor decision to go for a drop shot (after one hadn't worked for her earlier in the set, and in many ways allowed Williams, who'd been plagued by sloppy footwork since the 1st set, to begin to rev her internal engines when she charged for the ball and put away a winner), which Serena retrieved with ease to take a 30/love lead before going on to hold for 6-5. After going up 15/love on Azarenka's serve, as Vika tried to force the first Open women's final 3rd set tie-break since 1985, Serena had won eleven of thirteen points when the match was on the line and, in fact, Vika had had it on her racket.
Azarenka twice got to within a point of a breaker-forcing hold, but by then, Serena had gotten the scent of her 15th major title, and there was really no stopping her. Once she got to her first match point, which she did after the game's second deuce, it was just a matter of when. One point, in fact. Serena's return of a second serve resulted in a long backhand error from Azarenka and, after 2:18, Williams won 6-2/2-6/7-5, claiming her fourth U.S. Open title. Williams ended with a 44-13 edge in winners (13-0 in aces), and ran her career record against Azarenka to 10-1 with her fifteenth career win over a reigning world #1.
After the match, Azarenka didn't allow herself to get emotional over the loss, or how it occurred. She said she'll "have no regrets." She's really taken to embracing her new-found maturity... the true champion that Azarenka has found within herself in 2012 should always THINK that her ability to win is up to HER. It's all right to be angry that she lost. In fact, that anger, when focused, is what can make that belief come true one day. Just ask Serena, who's managed to turn the art of redemption into something of a blood sport during her various slam-winning career "comebacks."
About to turn 31 in about two weeks, Williams' march toward history has once again included some thunderously loud footsteps this summer. The latest: she's just accomplished a sweep of the Wimbledon & U.S. titles in a single summer for the first time by any woman in a decade (naturally, it was Serena who did it back then, too), and is now just the third woman to include a run to Olympic singles Gold (Graf '88 & Venus '00) in the same summer. She's in the best shape of her life, and seems to be more focused than ever. She's still only ranked #4, but it's just one of those numbers tricks that happen on occasion in the WTA rankings... and usually involve Serena.
As has been the case at multiple times over the past decade, when Serena is "on," even with all the advancement of the twentysomething set over the past year, she's very rarely -- if ever -- going to be bested. We're most definitely in the midst of another of those periods of time when "Serenativity" rules the land.
How long will the latest reign last? Well, honestly, it'll probably be up to Serena.
* - "People complain about the noise I make, but I can get louder. Maybe I should get to 100. I haven't had any luck, so it may help me put more of myself into my matches." - Victoria Azarenka, reacting to the possible addition of a "noise meter" to measure on-court emanations
* - "I want to say thanks to Kim for being such a good role model to me for so many years." - Laura Robson, after defeating Kim Clijsters, ending her singles career
* - "This completely feels like the perfect place to retire." - Kim Clijsters
* - "Last time!" - Kim Clijsters (with a grin and a clap) at her final post-match press conference
* - "Why Chinese still use chopsticks? Why Chinese have to put family name first, right? I think a lot American people couldn't understand, yeah. Two thing already. I couldn't find a third one." - Li Na, on what U.S. fans misunderstand about China
* - "This morning there was like a camera crew outside my hotel, which was a little bit freaky. I got really excited because I thought they were waiting for someone who was actually famous." - Laura Robson, who defeated both Clijsters and Li at the '12 U.S. Open
* - "I kind of just started playing for history. It's very motivating. Since I plan on playing for a long time, (it's) definitely plausible." - Serena Williams, on the possibility of matching or exceeding the 18 career slams won by both Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert
In the summer of 2013, Serena Williams vs. Victoria Azarenka finally seemed to develop into the sort of on-court rivalry that Williams had never really been a part of in her career. They met for a second straight year in the U.S. Open. The final result proved to be the same as in 2012, but once again the the battle was true, right and just.
Well, you know what happened after that.
A year after winning 23 straight games in one stretch en route to the '12 U.S. Open title, Williams broke her own record by winning *24* this time around (between the Round of 16 and the semifinals). Back in "mission mode," she allowed just 16 games to her opponents in her first six matches -- 1,3,4,5,0 and 3 -- and then found, of course, Azarenka waiting for in the Open final for a second straight year, a first in the event since Serena and sister Venus met in back-to-back championship matches in 2001-02.
One year after the Belarusian forced Williams to go three sets to earn the crown, in a final played in windy conditions, she did it again. Down a double-break at 4-1, Azarenka twice saw Serena serve for the title (a year after Vika had failed to do the same against her in the '12 final) and come as close as two points from locking away the match before a tie-break was needed to decide the set. There, Azarenka overcame another disadvantage -- a mini-break deficit at 3-1 -- and won 8-6 to forced a deciding 3rd. Finally, Williams seized control, winning the 2:45 contest 7-5/6-7(6)/6-1 to claim her 17th major crown (one behind Navratilova and Evert), defending her title to claim her fifth U.S. Open. The tournament's oldest singles champ in the Open era, the 31-year old also picked up the biggest champion's check in history, collecting a record $3.6m ($2.6m for winning the Open, then a $1 million bonus for having won both the tournament and the U.S. Open Series).
Meanwhile, with Rafael Nadal winning the men's title at Flushing Meadows, the Spaniard and Williams completed their "shared Career Co-Slam," becoming the the first male and female players to claim the titles in the same event at all four majors in their careers: the 2009 AO, 2010 WI, 2013 RG and US. Prior to the '13 Open, Nadal had also won the U.S. Open Series, allowing him to match Williams' record payday.
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After having missed time following her injury-related exit from Wimbledon, Azarenka looked for most of the hard court season like a player working off the rust of too much time off. Her serve never really did cease to become a problem to be overcome. Still, she called upon her hard-won experience and getting-it-done skills to reach the final in Carlsbad, defeat Serena in Cincinnati and somehow compensate for her erratic level of play (and a truly awful dress) from the 1st Round through the semis to return to the U.S. Open final. Once there, she raised the level of her NYC game to once again give Williams her only real competition of the tournament. In the end, she'd earned some of the respect that used to elude her (though Serena and the Williams clan seem to have always looked upon Vika as an equal on the court... or as close as anyone can be in the face of the guiding power of Serenativity), having reached four straight hard court slam finals and seemingly measuring space for her name to eventually be engraved onto the silver U.S. Open championship cup.
As the decade ends, though, the wait continues. Due to a series of injuries, motherhood and court battles for custody of her son, thus far Azarenka (though she did win a rare "Sunshine Double" in '16) hasn't had a Top 10 season since 2013, nor reached another slam semifinal.
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The success of the Italians in New York during the decade became even more deeply ingrained in the Open in 2013.
31-year old Flavia Pennetta, ranked #83 after coming back from wrist surgery that had kept her off tour for nearly a year, reached her maiden slam singles semifinal. Meanwhile, wherever there was an Italian woman in the draw, another seemed to have followed her there. Pennetta defeated Sara Errani in the 2nd Round, while Roberta Vinci took out Karin Knapp in the 3rd and Camila Giorgi (the qualifier had defeated #6 Caroline Wozniacki a round earlier in her nighttime Ashe debut) in the 4th.
In her second straight QF at Flushing Meadows, Vinci found long-time friend Pennetta waiting there for her. It was just one match too many for Vinci, who put up a bit of a fight in the 1st set, then essentially breezed through the 2nd to get out of town.
Two years later the two women would unexpectedly face off in the women's *final.*
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Maria Sharapova missed the 2013 U.S. Open due to shoulder bursitis, another blow in what had been a disappointing summer that also included a shocking upset in the 1st Round at Wimbledon at the hands of qualifier Michelle Larcher de Brito, after which she'd parted ways with coach Thomas Hogstedt. In July, Sharapova brought aboard Hall of Famer Jimmy Connors as her new coach, a partnership that lasted just one match.
The shoulder injury would end her season.
In the middle of all this was a bogus story made the rounds about Sharapova seeking to change her name to "Sugarpova" before the U.S. Open in order to promote her year-old candy line.
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Draw notes:
* - after years of rain delays and Monday finals, it was announced that a roof was (finally) coming to Ashe Stadium, as well as on a rebuilt Louis Armstrong Stadium. Eventually. The Ashe court roof was completed in 2016, with the new Armstrong arriving in 2018.
* - three-quarters of the women's semifinals consisted of players in their thirties, as well as five of the eight quarterfinalists.
* - Li Na, in her eighth U.S. Open MD appearance, reached her first semifinal. A year after falling to Laura Robson in the 3rd Round, Li defeated the Brit in another 3rd Round match-up. A round later, she destroyed Jelena Jankovic 6-3/6-0 in a match considered by some to quite possibly be the best the future Hall of Famer had ever played. She led 3-0 in both sets, and strung together a streak of 15 straight points (a 16th was overturned on a replay challenge) in one stretch. After defeating Ekaterina Makarova in the QF, Li lost to eventual champ Serena Williams in the semis.
It turned out to be Li's final U.S. Open. In 2013, after having playing Wimbledon, Li parted ways with coach Carlos Rodriguez and then skipped the summer hard court season due to a knee injury which would require surgery. Shortly after the completion of the U.S. Open, Li announced her retirement on September 19, 2014. Five years later she was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
* - in a Round of 16 match-up with Victoria Azarenka, Ana Ivanovic won the opening set. Amazingly, it was the first time the Serb had won the 1st set in a match vs. a Top 10 player in a slam since she won Roland Garros in 2008, ending a streak of fifteen consecutive opening set defeats.
* - Slovakian Daniela Hantuchova reached the singles QF, her first at Flushing Meadows in eleven years (and her first in any slam since the '08 Australian Open). She saved four MP vs Julia Glushko in a 3rd Round match.
It would be her last QF-or better result at a major. She played in eleven more slam MD in her career before retiring in 2017.
* - Jamie Hampton, the #23 seed, defeated Kristina Mladenovic en route to the 3rd Round, her best finish in four U.S. Open appearances. She lost to Sloane Stephens.
Having also in 2013 reached the Australian Open 3rd Round, produced her best career slam result in Paris (4th Rd.), and played in her first tour-level final in Eastbourne, Hampton had climbed to a career-high ranking (#24) during the summer as she completed what was the 23-year old's best season to date. Unfortunately, it would prove to be Hampton's final completed season on tour, and she'd never play another match in a major, either. After opening '14 with a semifinal run in Auckland, Hampton was forced to retire from that match (vs. Venus Williams) with a hip injury.
She underwent six surgeries over the next eighteen months, but was never able to be physically sound enough to play on tour again.
* - Simona Halep, having earned the #21 seed after a breakthrough season that saw her win four titles on three different surfaces in the season's opening eight months, reached her maiden slam Round of 16, defeating Heather Watson, Donna Vekic and #14 Maria Kirilenko before falling to Pennetta. The future #1 and multi-slam winner attained her first career Top 20 ranking after the Open.
* - Other firsts of note...
U.S. OPEN MD APPEARANCE: Genie Bouchard (def. Karolina Pliskova, in her own maiden Open), Ash Barty (the wild card lost to #32 Anastasisa Pavlyuchenkova in the 2nd Rd.), Caroline Garcia (def. Shelby Rogers) and Monica Puig.
SLAM MD WIN: Elina Svitolina (def. #17 seed Dominika Cibulkova)
* - Russia's Nadia Petrova played her final grand slam match at the '13 U.S. Open, losing in the 1st Round to Julia Glushko.
In December of that year, Petrova's mother died in a tragic auto accident, leading to her withdrawal from the Australian circuit of events in January. She returned to the tour and played in Charleston that spring, but then essentially walked away from the spot for good at age 31, though she didn't officially retire until January of 2017.
A former world singles and doubles #3, Petrova was a semifinalist at Roland Garros in 2003 and '05, won two WTA Finals doubles championships, as well as 13 tour singles and 24 doubles titles. She added an Olympic doubles Bronze in London in 2012. Her rare combination of power and net skills made her star-crossed career all that much more frustrating, as injuries and inconsistency often blocked her path to the far greater success that seemed within her reach. Perhaps her best shot at winning a slam singles crown was at the '06 RG, as she'd won three clay court titles that season and posted a win over Justine Henin. Petrova had reached at least the QF in four straight majors coming into the event, and done so in five of six majors, and was actually considered a (if not *the*) "favorite" to win in Paris.
But then she suffered a leg injury days before the start of play, and it ultimately led to the compromised #3 seed losing in the 1st Round to Akiko Morigami. Oh, Nadia.
Petrova gave birth to her first child, a girl, in 2018.
* - a year after reaching the U.S. Open 3rd Round as a wild card, Mallory Burdette lost in the 1st Round to #27-seeded Svetlana Kuznetsova. She played her last career match in Quebec City two weeks later before incurring a shoulder injury that started her down the path to retirement in 2014.
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One year after losing to Kim Clijsters on Night 1 in her slam debut, the second career slam MD match of qualifier Vicky Duval (#296) was an explosive occasion, as she upset #11-seeded Samantha Stosur 5-7/6-4/6-4 to record her first career slam MD victory. Duval, 17, served for all three sets, but narrowly avoided a straight sets loss to the '11 U.S. Open champ when she trailed by a set and 4-2 in the 2nd. Stosur's DF to hand a break to Duval lit the fire of the young Bannerette and she broke the Aussie again two games later. After having taken a 4-3 lead, Duval expertly held her nerve (and her serve) in the closing games of the 3rd, smacking a winner on her fourth match point.
The following summer, Duval was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma during Wimbledon qualifying. She decided to remain in the event, and actually qualified for the MD and defeated a seeded player in the opening round. She made her Top 100 debut after the event, but missed the next thirteen months undergoing and recovering from chemotherapy. Cancer free, Duval has since returned to tennis, but has yet to win another slam MD match. In 2016, utilizing her protected ranking, she lost in the 1st Round in Melbourne and London, but she has lost in U.S. Open qualifying four times between 2015-19.
At the same time, Russia's Alisa Kleybanova, a Top 20 player as recently as February 2011 before being diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma in July of that year, had played her first WTA event in eighteen months in Toronto a few weeks before the '13 U.S. Open. She played her first slam match since her return to health at Flushing Meadows, upsetting Monica Puig in the 1st Round before losing to Jelena Jankovic a round later.
Though Kleybanova competed off and on through January 2018 (winning a handful of ITF titles), she only played in one more slam MD, in New York in '14, reaching the 2nd Round once again. She received the WTA's Comeback Player of the Year in 2013.
Meanwhile, Brit Elena Baltacha made her final grand slam appearance at the U.S. Open in 2013, losing in the final round of qualifying to Michelle Larcher de Brito (after having posted wins over Melanie Oudin and Olga Savchuk). The 30-year old would announce her retirement in November, then marry her fiance/coach Nino Severino in December.
Having previously been diagnosed with the liver condition primary sclerosing cholangitis when she was teenager, Baltacha was diagnosed with liver cancer in January 2014. The died of the disease that May.
From the website of The Elena Baltacha Foundation:
"The Elena Baltacha Foundation was established in 2014 to support the work that former British Tennis No. 1 Elena Baltacha had begun before she sadly passed away. The Foundation has ensured that the support from the professional tennis world and the general public has been focused in the right way, and all donations raised from subsequent fundraising initiatives have been put to good use. The Foundation has also provided financial support to EBAT, the Elena Baltacha Academy of Tennis, which was set up in 2012.
Elena Baltacha set up her Academy with one goal – to give more children, from all backgrounds, the opportunity to learn to play tennis."
In May 2015, the champion's trophy at the Aegon Open in Nottingham was named the "Elena Baltacha trophy" in her honor.
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Defending women's doubles champs Sara Errani & Robert Vinci lost in the QF to the Williams sisters, opening the door for Andrea Hlavackova to sweep to *two* slam crowns at Flushing Meadows.
Hlavackova teamed with fellow Czech Lucie Hradecka and, as the #5 seeds, defeated the likes of #3 Nadia Petrova/Katarina Srebotnik in the QF, then Venus & Serena in the semis. In the final, the two defeated the #8-seeded all-Aussie pair of 17-year old Ash Barty & Casey Dellacqua, who finished 0-3 in major finals in 2013 after also losing in the Australian Open and Wimbledon championship matches.
Hlavackova also picked up the MX crown with Max Mirnyi, edging past Kristina Mladenovic & Daniel Nestor (12-10 match TB) in the semis, then defeating Abigail Spears & Santiago Gonzalez in the final.
Having been inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame, Martina Hingis made her long-awaited announcement that she was coming out of retirement (again). She credited Daniela Hantuchova with convincing her to return as a doubles specialist, saying, "It took Daniela a lot of courage and inspiration to kind of dig me out of a grave." But, in fact, Hingis' return to tennis had been rumored for a few years before it finally became official soon after HoF weekend. So...
The Open was Hingis' first slam back. She and Hantuchova entered the WD draw via a wild card, losing in the 1st Round to defending champs Errani/Vinci. She and Hantuchova would have little success as a duo, but Hingis would find a *lot* of it elsewhere as she added, with other partners, another ten WD/MX slam titles (and 23 additional WTA crowns, as well as an Olympic Silver medal) to her career total.
At this Open, though, she and Mahesh Bhupathi fell in their opening match in mixed doubles.
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In the Wheelchair finals, 23-year Dutch #2-seed Aniek Van Koot came back from a set down to defeat top-seeded German Sabine Ellerbrock, 3-6/6-2/7-6(3), in a match-up of the women who had taken over where Van Koot's countrywoman, Esther Vergeer, left off. The 2013 U.S. Open was the first competition held in Flushing Meadows without Vergeer, who'd retired following the 2012 season (though her last Open appearance was in '11 since there were no WC events held in New York in '12 due to the Paralympics). In the Open, Van Koot had beaten Jiske Griffioen (1st Rd.) and Yui Kamiji (SF), both future slam winners and world #1's, en route to the final.
The two divvied up the three slams contested in 2013, with Van Koot defeating the 37-year old Ellerbrock in the AO final, then Ellerbrock coming back to defeat her in the RG semifinals en route to her own title in Paris. It would take Van Koot six years to win her third slam singles crown, with it not coming until she won Wimbledon in 2019.
Van Koot teamed with Griffioen to defeat Ellerbrock & Kamiji in the doubles final.
Both Kamiji and Jordanne Whiley made their U.S. Open debuts in 2013. They'd both go on to win the singles title in the three competitions held (Kamiji-2, Whiley-1) between 2014-17, and join together to win the doubles once.
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In the junior, #2-seeded Croat Ana Konjuh added a U.S. Open girls crown to her Australian Open trophy from January with a 3-6/6-4/7-6(6) win over U.S. wild card Tornado Alicia Black. Black served at 5-4 in the deciding tie-break, but lost both points, then saw Konjuh win on her second match point.
The hard luck player of the junior slam season was 17-year old German Antonia Lottner. Twice she defeated the #1 seed -- Konjuh in the RG semis and Belinda Bencic in the U.S. QF -- but was never able to win a junior slam crown. Her best result was a loss in the Roland Garros final to Bencic.
Czechs Barbora Krejcikova & Katerina Siniakova defeated Bencic & Sara Sorribes Tormo in the final to claim the juniors doubles, winning their third straight girls doubles major in 2013 (Krejcikova had also appeared in the GD final in Melbourne in January). As was their custom at the time, the duo celebrated with a choreographed dance.
CITY SIGHTS:
Venus' flower dress and magenta-streaked hair...
Venus & Serena's nails...
Vika's outfit (for all the wrong reasons)...
Anna Wintour...
SQUIRRELS!!!!!!...
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We weren't quite sure what we were going to get in this U.S. Open women's final.
Oh, we knew we'd get a good-to-great Serena Williams, just as we have for most of the world #1's twenty previous appearances in grand slam finals, going all the way back to her first as a 17-year old at the Open in 1999. It was the world #2 that we weren't quite so sure about.
As it turned out, we needn't have worried.
Waiting to watch the opening moments of this match was much like opening a present and wondering what we'd find inside -- something amazing... or a lump of coal. Essentially, in a rarity when it comes to match-ups involving Serena, it was up to Victoria Azarenka whether or not this was going to be a paint-by-numbers final, as so many other U.S. Open women's championships have been over most of the last two decades until a year ago when Vika coaxed Williams into a three-set match (the first in a final at Flushing Meadows since 1995), or something far greater, and memorable. While it was hoped that the same Belarusian who served for the title in last year's final would show up on Sunday, after so many cover-your-eyes moments over the past two weeks from Azarenka it surely wasn't a certainty that her play wouldn't once again be just as ugly as the pink-and-battleship-gray dress she's been sporting throughout the tournament. But Vika believed that she could find her New York groove. That was all that mattered. And we would all be the better for it by the end of the evening, too.
But, well, Serena is still Serena. And this was still a grand slam final... and, save for a few "bad days," you generally know what that means. While the end of these proceedings was something we'd seen at the conclusion of many others before it, rarely have we seen Williams have to jump through the hoops she did against Azarenka in order to get to that familiar place at the end of one of the four biggest two-week stretches of every year.
The beautiful devil was in the details.
From the start, when the players were introduced on Arthur Ashe Stadium court, the crowd was for Serena. It wasn't surprising, even considering the sixteen-time major winner's oft-checkered past at this event. New York (& the U.S.) loves winners, and Serena, while becoming more and more beloved with each passing season, is first and foremost that. But none of that bothered Azarenka. She was content with having her play do her talking for her, and for whatever resulting respect she got for that to arrive whenever it would arrive. Or not. It didn't matter that she might once again have to win over anyone, though much of the old "Vika aversion" HAS dissipated quite a bit since the Melbourne mess that had media and fans sniping at her every move earlier this year. While the Aussie "fans" might not be able to say the same, Azarenka has shown over the course of this season, and the last two seasons, just how much SHE has matured, both as a player and a personality on the WTA tour.
And it was about to show. Big time.
As one sort of suspected might be the case two days ago, it didn't take all that long for it become clear that the scratchy, sometimes-haphazard play that Azarenka had displayed throughout this tournament wasn't going to rule the day in the final.
Suddenly, serving with a 6-5 lead after having previously been often frustrated while Azarenka had simultaneously maintained her calm, Williams reeled off eight straight points, holding at love to take the set 7-5.
It was a last minute "save" by Williams, though it WAS the closest any player had come to taking a set off Serena over the past two weeks. As Williams' serve continued to improve, and she got "that look" in her eye that we've seen so often in grand slam finals, the tight nature of the 1st set looked as if it might be the closest thing that Azarenka would get to a "call to glory" moment in the match. As Serena stretched the streak to ten points, broke in the opening game of the 2nd set, then held at love for 2-0, it seemed a reasonable conclusion.
But it was a wrong one.
It appeared it would be Vika's last stand, especially after her own three-double fault game followed, as she squandered a 30/love lead and was broken for 4-1, going down a double-break in the set. While the stage was set for it, Azarenka wasn't ready to fold like a cheap Italian suit... err, I mean like Roberta Vinci in the quarterfinals.
Instead, she broke Williams for 4-2, then held in back-to-back service games. From there, one year after Azarenka had served for the match in the '12 Open final, Williams twice served for the match herself, at 5-4 and 6-5. Williams got to within two points of the title, but both times Azarenka managed a break, forcing a tie-break. There, Williams went up a mini-break at 3-1, only to see Vika hold steady and Serena once more have trouble keeping her game clean in the wind. Azarenka took a 6-4 lead, but failed to put away the set. At 6-6, she fired a good into-the-body second serve that was sprayed by a surprised Williams to get to SP #3, then watched Williams' long backhand error hand her an 8-6 tie-break and send a U.S. Open final between the two of them into a third set for the second straight year.
The measure of what Azarenka accomplished in the comeback from the brink of defeat is astounding considering the opponent. It's just not the sort of thing that happens to Williams in a slam final -- it's what Williams often DOES in a slam final. Remember, in the 2nd set, Vika managed to win a set off Serena after being down a double-break at 4-1, having Williams twice serve for the title and come within a scant two points of securing Open win #5, then she threw in a tie-break win after being down a mini-break at 3-1, too. You know, just for the heck of it. It was the stuff of myth. The same sort of grit and determination that turned Justine Henin into "La Petit Taureau" at this very tournament ten years ago in the semifinals against Clijsters en route to the '03 title. It seemed as if this was going to be the night that Azarenka, on September 8th between 6:30 and 7 p.m. in New York, transformed herself into something else... something more... something greater.
All that might still happen one day, and the roots of what Azarenka eventually becomes, both in her own eyes, as well as those of her admirers (Backspinner raises hand) and the rest of the sport, could very well be traced back to this night. For while Vika didn't finish the night the same way she'd extended it, as much as she proved her new-found maturity in defending her Australian Open crown eight months ago, she might have given everyone a preview of the truly great champion she could soon become in her ultimately losing effort in this U.S. Open final. In the end, this was Serena's night, as her march toward history added one more highlight. But it could also be seen as the day that a "new" Vika -- newly admired, newly respected -- was conceived, too.
In the 3rd set, Williams displayed the form that had put her in position to win a seventeenth slam crown tonight. When Azarenka wavered just a bit, double-faulting at deuce to fully lose at 40/15 lead in Game #4, then following up a wonderful break point save via a drop shot and face-to-face-at-the-net battle with Williams with another double-fault on BP #2, Serena pounced. Up 3-1, she chose the next game to open up her weapons case. A lob winner was followed up by a 126-mph ace, then another ace to hold at love for 4-1. A deep return forced an Azarenka error to secure a break for 5-1. Serving for the match for a third time, Serena simply stretched to get her racket on a seeming volley winner from Azarenka... and then saw the destined-to-go-long shot be held up by the wind and land in the backcourt for a winner.
Now, everything was going Williams' way. She'd finally managed to tame Mother Nature and use it for her own means. It only took about two and three-quarter hours.
An Azarenka missed return shot gave Serena her first match point. Two points later, Vika's long return unleashed a spirited Williams celebration of her 7-5/6-7(6)/6-1 victory. As she jumped around the court in a fashion reminiscent of her sister Venus' post-Wimbledon win exuberance in coming back from match point down against Lindsay Davenport in the final in '05, Serena was embraced by the crowd as not only a seventeen-time slam champ, but also a five-time winner of her nation's grand slam.
And, in many ways, Vika was embraced, too (and not just because Serena told everyone she was a great player and person -- and actually seemed to really mean it). As she danced after her sometimes-ugly performances over the past weeks, she was able to smile after her defeat here. Even with the reality of just a second-best ending to her '13 Open run staring her in the face, it was apparent that she knew that she should be proud of her accomplishment. She can still desire more, but she doesn't have to destroy herself for not getting it all on this particular night. She gained a great deal at this slam. She learned how to "find a way" to reach a slam final while playing a level of tennis that was, frankly, beneath her, and she knows that, after seasons past in which she decidedly could NOT do it, she now can take a Serena punch and not only live to tell about it, but deliver some stinging shots of her own in the aftermath. By the end, even her oddly-fitting dress was looking better and better as the evening hour arrived.
Vika Azarenka is not quite yet a finished product. But, boy, is she getting REALLY close.
We already know what Williams is: quite simply, a truly awesome big match creature of habit who, even as she becomes the winningest thirtysomething in women's slam history (w/ four titles), is still able to produce shock and awe when she DOESN'T totally put away an opponent. At nearly 32, her march -- toward Evert and Navratilova, and maybe Graf and Court, too -- isn't slowing down one bit. In fact, her biggest obstacle to her grandest goals might just have been staring back at her from the other side of the net tonight.
Over the course of 2013, we've wondered whether we finally has a head-to-head match-up worthy of attention on the WTA tour. After Doha and Cincinnati, we had an inkling. Now, as the women's action at this year's U.S. Open comes to a close, now we know that, yes, we finally do have just that.
* - "I can't play in this wind!" - Serena Williams, during the singles final
* - "She's a champion. She knows what it takes to get there. I know the feeling, too. When two people who want that feeling so bad meet, it's like a clash. That's what happened out there. A battle." - Victoria Azarenka, on Serena Williams and their second consecutive meeting in the final
* - "From the first point, the tension, the battle, the determination -- it was... kind of like boiling the water or something." - Victoria Azarenka, on the final vs. Serena
* - "It is a tough loss, but to be in the final and play against the best player -- who deserves to win today -- it's incredible." - Victoria Azarenka, on losing the final
* - "Vika's such a great opponent, such a great fighter. And that's why she's been able to win multiple grand slams. That's why it was never over until match point." - Serena Williams, on Azarenka
* - "It's incredible what she's achieving. She's playing definitely her best tennis right now. It really shows how focused and how composed and how much she can raise the level." - Victoria Azarenka, on Serena
* - "It won't be any time soon." - Serena Williams, on her eventual retirement
Match point, sixth #usopen title for #Serena. @MBUSA http://t.co/aAsQxqfleL
— US Open Tennis (@usopen) September 7, 2014
Williams didn't lose a set during the tournament, and never dropped more than three games in any set. Her sixth U.S. title tied Evert's Open era record in New York.
Meanwhile, the Open final capped the Dane's resurgent summer in the wake of her broken engagement to golfer Rory McIlroy. Wozniacki's friendship with Williams flourished during the period, during which she put together a North American hard court campaign that included a Rogers Cup QF (a loss to Serena), Cincinnati final (Williams, again) and her first slam final in five years (her third loss to Serena in four events). Her run returned her to the Top 10. In November, she ran the New York City marathon, finishing with a time of 3:26:33.
Peng Shuai and Ekaterina Makarova were first-time slam semifinalists. Peng joing Li Na and Zheng Jie as players from China to go so far in a major, though her run ended on a disappointing note, with Peng cramping and having to retire vs. Wozniacki down 7-6/4-3. She was wheeled off the court, and hasn't advanced beyond the 2nd Round at any U.S. Open since.
The '14 Open represents Peng's only slam result better than the Round of 16. She won just nine additional combined slam MD matches between 2015-19.
Makarova's SF results came after four QF finishes in majors between 2012-14, and the Russian would make it two in a row by also reaching the Final Four at the 2015 AO. She's yet to reach another major QF since, but has reached #8 in singles(2015), #1 in doubles (2018), and has claimed three WD slams, one MX, as well as a WTAF title and Olympic Gold in doubles.
In doubles, Makarova joined with fellow Hordette Elena Vesnina to win their second slam crown (first since '13 RG), defeating Martina Hingis & Flavia Pennetta in the final. The duo had beaten Venus & Serena Williams in the QF in the sisters' final Open WD appearance of the decade.
The final was Hingis' first in a major since the 2002 Australian Open singles and doubles. Hingis' comeback picked up steam in '14, as she won Miami with Sabine Lisicki and went 2-2 in finals with Pennetta.
Sania Mirza picked up her third career slam MX title, joining with Bruno Soares to defeat Abigail Spears & Santiago Gonzalez in the final.
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Draw notes:
* - 17-year old Swiss Belinda Bencic, a two-time junior slam winner (RG/WI) in '13, reached the women's QF in her slam Flushing Meadows debut. She wouldn't have her next slam QF+ until 2019, when she reached the U.S. semis.
* - Serbian qualifier Aleksandra Krunic upset #27 Madison Keys and #3 Petra Kvitova on her way to the Round of 16, where she lost in three sets to #16 Victoria Azarenka
* - Italians flourished once again, as Flavia Pennetta reached the QF (her fifth QF-or-better result in New York in six appearances since 2008), Sara Errani the Round of 16 (def. Venus in the 3rd Rd.) and Roberta Vinci the 3rd Round.
* - wild card Madison Brengle ten-year quest to record a MD win at a major finally became a success. The Bannerette had gone 0-fo-27 in slam qualifying attempts in her career (failing to make it through the Q-rounds in 24 straight majors), and been 0-4 in slam 1st Rounds (when given a WC) in her career before her '14 opening round victory over Julia Glushko.
Firsts & lasts:
* - 15-year old wild card CiCi Bellis made her slam debut and upset #12-seed Dominika Cibulkova in the 1st Round, becoming the youngest to record a MD match win at Flushing Meadows since Anna Kournikova in 1996 (and the youngest U.S. player since Mary Joe Fernandez in 1986).
BIG WIN for @cicibellis99! The 15 y/o American upsets No.12 #Cibulkova in her Grand Slam debut 6-1, 4-6, 6-4. #usopen pic.twitter.com/bpByr5jZtt
— US Open Tennis (@usopen) August 26, 2014
* - two years after the USTA controversially withheld funds due to "fitness issues," former junior #1 Taylor Townsend, 18, made her U.S. Open MD debut as a wild card, losing in the 1st Round to eventual champ Serena Williams. In Mixed doubles, she teamed with Donald Young (son of her coach, Donald Young Sr.) to reach the semifinals, having recorded a 2nd Round win over #2-seeded Andrea Hlavackova (DC) & Alexandra Peya en route.
* - two-time slam semifinalist (2008 WI/2010 AO) Zheng Jie played her final U.S. Open singles match, losing to countrywoman Peng Shuai in the 1st Round
* - Maria Kirilenko played her final slam match, a 1st Round Day 1 night match at Ashe Stadium vs. fellow Russian Maria Sharapova. Kirilenko dropped the final twelve games in a 6-4/6-0 defeat. She played her final tour matches in September, reaching the Seoul singles and doubles semis, then losing in the 1st Round in Beijing. She's yet to play since. Kirilenko was married in January 2015, had a baby in July of that year, then another in 2017.
* - NCAA champ (Univ. of Virginia) Danielle Collins make her slam debut via a wild card, falling in the 1st Round to Simona Halep after taking the 1st set in a tie-breaker.
* - 43-year old Kimiko Date-Krumm played her final U.S. Open MD match, losing in the 1st Round in a three-setter vs. Venus Williams. Their combined age of 77 was the most on tour in a match in the Open era.) Date fell in U.S. Open qualifying in 2015.
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Unseeded Marie Bouzkova defeated Ukraine's Anhelina Kalinina to take the girls title, becoming the first Czech to win the junior title at Flushing Meadows in twenty-three years. Bouzkova defeated #2-seed Alona Ostapenko, the reigning Wimbledon girls champ, in the 2nd Round.
Marie #Bouzkova becomes the 2014 Junior Girls' Singles #usopen champion with a win over #Kalinina, 6-4, 7-6. pic.twitter.com/MmU0wDtbAE
— US Open Tennis (@usopen) September 7, 2014
Ipek Soylu and Swiss partner Jill Teichmann claimed the girls doubles, with Soylu becoming the first Turk to win a junior slam crown.
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Yui Kamiji won her first U.S. Open wheelchair singles crown, defeating defending champ Aniek Van Koot 6-3/6-3 in the final. She and Jordanne Whiley teamed to win the doubles, defeating DC Jiske Griffioen & Van Koot to complete their Grand Slam for the '14 season. They'd go on to win a fifth consecutive slam title in Melbourne the following January.
Kamiji ended the season as the reigning champ in six of the seven slam disciplines, coming up short in only the Australian Open singles, where she was runner-up in three sets to Sabine Ellerbrock.
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The 47-year partnership between CBS and the U.S. Open ended...
CITY SIGHTS:
Caroline Wozniacki's hair gets wrapped around her racket in the middle of a point vs. Aliaksandra Sasnovich...
* - "People have been trying to retire me since I was, like 25. For some reason in tennis, we always do that to our players, it's weird. We don't encourage them to stick around. It's like, 'get out of here.'" - Venus Williams
* - "According to Kimiko (Date), I have another decade." - Venus Williams
* - "She's loyal and is fun to hang around. That's something that I think is very important in a friend." - Caroline Wozniacki, on Serena Williams
* - "I think everyone in general plays the match of their lives against me. So every time I step on the court, I have to always be a hundred times better. If I'm not, then I'm in trouble. If I'm not playing a great, great match, these girls when they play me, they play as if they're on the ATP Tour, and then they play other girls completely different. It's never easy being in my shoes." - Serena Williams
* - "Serena, you deserve it. You played better than me today and you deserve to be the champion. ... You are an inspiration on the court and off it. You're an unbelievable champion and a great friend. The drinks are on you tonight." - Caroline Wozniacki, to Williams
Flavia Pennetta's maiden slam title at age 33 capped off an historic run by herself and her fellow Italians in the majors during the decade, which saw two of them (w/ Francesca Schiavone at RG in '10) become major champions and two others (Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci) reach slam singles finals after no women before them from the nation had ever managed either feat in the long history of the sport.
The Open had traditionally been Pennetta's best slam, as she'd reached four QF and a semi in New York since 2008.
Naturally, after all the group's years of camaraderie as friends, Fed Cup teammates and doubles partners (Errani/Pennetta also reached the WD semis at this Open), Pennetta shared the spotlight in the final with longtime friend Vinci, who'd reached the final with quite possibly what was the biggest match win at Flushing Meadows during the 2010's, her semifinal upset of three-time defending champ Serena Williams.
16 years before tomorrow's #USOpen final, Flavia Pennetta and Roberta Vinci won French Open Girls' doubles together. pic.twitter.com/qv9gvmnTNJ
— Ben Rothenberg (@BenRothenberg) September 11, 2015
After having posted wins over previous slam winners Sam Stosur and Petra Kvitova, and future major winner Simona Halep, Pennetta faced Vinci in the first all-Italian slam final. After a close 1st set, Vinci noticeably faded in the 2nd as Pennetta won 7-6(4)/6-2, becoming the oldest first-time major champ and the one who traveled the longest road (49 slam appearances) to get there.
Championship Point! Congrats @Flavia_Pennetta!! #USOpen pic.twitter.com/LI8bVjtWw9
— WTA (@WTA) September 12, 2015
#Pennetta and #Vinci first played against each other in a match when they were nine-years-old. #usopen pic.twitter.com/bAwYMR28hE
— US Open Tennis (@usopen) September 12, 2015
During the post-match trophy presentation, Pennetta then shocked the tennis world by announcing that this had been her last U.S. Open, and that she'd soon retire from the sport.
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While Pennetta's win was somewhat overshadowed by her retirement announcement, Vinci's semifinal win over Williams was (and is) the signature moment of the '15 U.S. Open. The #40-ranked Vinci -- a former doubles #1 and Career Doubles Slam winner who'd never won a set off Serena in singles -- kept Williams off balance with a variety of spins and drop shots, coming back from a break down in the 3rd set. After losing her lead, Vinci's tactics helped assure that Williams was never able to regain her edge.
The unseeded #Vinci pulls off the unthinkable upset of #Serena 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 to reach the final. @MBUSA #usopen http://t.co/FSglQ5AAUm
— US Open Tennis (@usopen) September 11, 2015
Williams had been riding a 33-match slam winning streak and was seeking her first Grand Slam season in '15, after having had non-calendar "Serena Slam" runs in 2002-03 and 2014-15, having completed her second four-in-a-row major title streak at Wimbledon earlier in the summer.
Vinci's win assured that eight different women would will the eight women's slam singles finalist spots in 2015. Her post-match interview effectively brought down the house on Ashe, as the 32-year old Vinci apologized to the crowd for her win ("Sorry, guys!"), calling it "best moment of my life"
The "dream team" doubles combination of Martina Hingis & Sania Mirza made their U.S. Open debut -- after Indian Wells, Miami and Wimbledon wins since the duo was first formed in the spring -- and took the title, defeating Casey Dellacqua & Yaroslava Shvedova in the final.
Your new #usopen champions! #Hingis #Mirza pic.twitter.com/3UUrm1jMbD
— US Open Tennis (@usopen) September 13, 2015
The win was Hingis' first U.S. Open title since winning the 1998 doubles. Hingis/Mirza would win a third straight major in Melbourne in January '15, but their partnership would ultimately last just fourteen months (during which they went 14-3 in finals) before they decided to go their seperate ways.
Defending WD champs Ekaterina Makarova & Elena Vesnina didn't defend their title, as Makarova didn't play doubles at all (and Vesnina entered alongside Genie Bouchard). Meanwhile, #2 seeds Bethanie Mattek-Sands & Lucie Safarova withdrew because of the Czech's abdominal injury.
Hingis doubled up on major titles, also winning the MX with Leander Paes with a 10-7 match tie-break win in the final over Mattek-Sands & Sam Querrey. It was the pair's third slam win in 2015, and they'd complete a Career Mixed Slam as a team at Roland Garros in '16. In her comeback, Hingis added a total of six MX crowns between 2015-17.
#USOpen2015: @Leander and @mhingis win mixed doubles title http://t.co/j0W8fEORTz pic.twitter.com/77srUpvyFQ
— TOI Sports News (@TOISportsNews) September 11, 2015
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Draw notes:
* - a broadcast partner in the years preceding 2015, ESPN assumed *full*-event coverage of the Open in the U.S. for the first time
* - #3 seed Maria Sharapova withdrew on the eve of the tournament due to a leg injury. It was the second time in three years the '06 champion pulled out of the U.S. Open with an injury.
* - a year after making her debut in the MD as a 15-year old old, CiCi Bellis lost in qualifying. But she did post a 4-6/6-1/6-4 victory in the opening Q-round that ended Kimiko Date-Krumm's U.S. Open career. There was a 28-year age gap between the 16 and 44-year olds.
Here's a few photos of CiCi Bellis against Kimiko Date-Krumm at the #USOpen on Day 1. pic.twitter.com/BeaHPmfH3B
— Ash Marshall (@AMPhotoNYC) August 26, 2015* - a year after recording her first career slam MD win ten years after she played her first match in a slam event, Madison Brengle reached the 3rd Round. After winning a 3:21 contest with Zheng Saisai, she followed up with another victory over Anna Tatishvili. 2015 saw Brengle finally break through on tour. After having just five tour-level MD wins coming into the season, she recorded 25 during the season, reached her first WTA final (Hobart), had her maiden Round of 16 result in a major (AO), set a career high ranking (#35) and got her first Top 10 win (Petra Kvitova). But after falling in the 3rd Round, Brengle didn't win another MD match at Flushing Meadows the rest of the decade, going 0-4.
* - the U.S.'s Varvara Lepchenko reached the Round of 16, her best result at Flushing Meadows, and tying her career best result at a major ('12 RG)
* - Petra Kvitova and Simona Halep reached the QF for the first time at the U.S. Open
* - British qualifier Johanna Konta (world #97) defeated #9-seeded Garbine Muguruza in a 7-6(4)/6-7(4)/6-2 contest that broke the U.S. Open women's match length record at 3:23, topping the 2011 Samantha Stosur/Nadia Petrova contest. The win was Konta's 15th consecutive that summer, as she eventually advanced to her first career slam Round of 16. 21-year old Muguruza -- who had just reached the Wimbledon final, and had two RG quarterfinals and a pair of AO Round of 16 results on her career resume -- had recorded her first career MD win at Flushing Meadows in the 1st Round.
HISTORY: #Konta d. No. 9 #Muguruza, 7-6, 6-7, 6-2 in longest women's match since #usopen introduced tiebreak (1970). pic.twitter.com/epaaK8VlNi
— US Open Tennis (@usopen) September 3, 2015
* - on Night 6, #25 Genie Bouchard defeated Dominika Cibulkova in a late evening 3rd Round match. Later, in a dark locker room, she slipped on a wet floor and suffered a concussion that led her to withdraw from her Round of 16 singles (sending Roberta Vinci to the QF) and doubles (ending partner Elena Vesnina's title defense attempt) matches. After battling the injury for months, Bouchard ultimately sued the USTA for negligence. The organization battled against the charges for over two years, with the case eventually going to court, where Bouchard took the stand to testify. She won the case, as the USTA was declared to be "mostly at fault" (75%), but her career (thus far) has never really recovered. The Canadian's 4th Round result in '15 was her sixth in eight majors in 2014-15, during which she had a 26-7 record. She's gone 11-15 in majors since, never advancing past the 3rd Round as she's had difficulty stringing victories and good results together and often struggled to maintain a Top 100 ranking.
* - in the QF, Serena and Venus Williams met in the U.S. Open for the first time since 2008 (they played in back-to-back finals in 2001-02). In their 27th meeting, on the 14th anniversary of the '01 final, Serena pulled away in the 3rd set to win 6-2/1-6/6-3. She fired an ace on MP to reach the Open SF for a seventh consecutive time.
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Firsts & lasts:
* - lucky loser Dasha Kasatkina, in the MD due to Sharapova's withdrawal, made her slam debut and reached the 3rd Round, the best result by a LL at a major since 1993
* - slam debuts were made by Sofia Kenin (as a WC), Maria Sakkari (as a qualifier), Jessica Pegula (the Buffalo, New York native qualified and defeated Alison Van Uytvanck, notching what was her only slam MD win in the decade)
* - U.S. Open debuts were made by Alona Ostapenko (at 18, the youngest slam qualifier in '15) and Anett Kontaveit (another qualifier, she reached the Round of 16 before losing to Venus Williams -- but didn't win another slam MD match until the '17 RG)
* - Daniela Hantuchova played in her last U.S. Open, losing in the 1st Round to Misaki Doi
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Dalmi Galfi won the girls singles, becoming the first Hungarian to claim the U.S. Open junior title and the country's first singles slam winner since Agnes Szavy in Paris in 2005. Galfi defeated Bannerette Sofia Kenin 7-5/6-4 in the final.
Meanwhile, 14-year old Canadian Bianca Andreescu made her first of two appearances in the girls competition at Flushing Meadows, losing in the 1st Round to U.S. teen Raveena Kingsley, 6-1/6-1.
Viktoria Kuzmova & Aleksandra Pospelova (SVK/RUS) defeated the all-Hordette duo of Anna Kalinskaya & Anastasia Potapova to win the doubles.
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Brit Jordanne Whiley defeated doubles partner and best friend Yui Kamiji, the defending champ and world #1, in the wheelchair final to win her maiden slam singles crown, 4-6/6-0/6-1. The match took place in the shadow of Arthur Ashe Stadium as the Djokovic/Federer men's final was being played, with the cheers from the big court often echoing in the background while the two women battled for the title.
That moment when all your dreams come true!! ???? #USOpen2015 pic.twitter.com/NNDbmrxETM
— Jordanne Whiley MBE (@jordannejoyce92) September 14, 2015
Jiske Griffioen & Aniek Van Koot won the doubles, their second title at Flushing Meadows in three years.
While Whiley won three more slam doubles titles in 2015-16, and reached the RG and Wimbledon singles semis in 2016, she didn't play another U.S. Open match the remainder of the decade. The competition wasn't held in '16 due to the summertime Paralympics, and she missed the tournament in 2016-17 due to having her first child. In 2019, she was ranked in the Top 8, but was pushed out of the MD at Flushing Meadows due to a wild card given to U.S. player Dana Mathewson.
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CITY SIGHTS:
Serena's animal print dress...
* - "For me! For me!" - Roberta Vinci, imploring the crowd to cheer for her during her semifinal match vs. Serena Williams
* - "I feel good right now. I can maybe touch the sky with my finger. ... Today is my day. Sorry, guys. - Roberta Vinci, after defeating Serena Williams in the semifinals
* - "I don't want to talk about how disappointing it is for me. If you have any other questions, I'm open for that." - Serena Williams, during her post-match press conference
* - "I (would) rather win, alongside Sania (Mirza) and Leander (Paes), grand slam titles than having to struggle with my body. ... No, thank you. I was just, like, practicing yesterday and I almost hurt myself." - Martina Hingis, answering why her comeback was restricted to doubles, with no singles
* - "Before I started this tournament, like one month ago, I made a big decision in my life. ... And this is the way I would like to say goodbye to tennis. I’m really happy. It’s what all the players want to do, going out with this kind of big trophy. So this one was my last match at the U.S. Open and I couldn’t think to finish a better way." - Flavia Pennetta, during the post-final trophy presentation
Going out on top: wanting to say "one more thing" #Pennetta announced her retirement from tennis. #usopen pic.twitter.com/SBau1DM5h9
— US Open Tennis (@usopen) September 12, 2015
US OPEN CHAMPION!!! WOW, I DID IT!!! pic.twitter.com/YpWv5A7jaM
— Angelique Kerber (@AngeliqueKerber) September 10, 2016
Angelique Kerber's yellow brick road to never-before-seen success cut yet another brilliant 2016 path, this time through New York. By the time the U.S. Open was over, the German had swept through seven matches at a major for the second time (w/ AO) that season (dropping just one set, in the final vs. Karolina Pliskova), put behind her disappointing summer losses in the Wimbledon, Olympic and Cincinnati finals, become the first German winner of the U.S. title (1996) and the first from her country to be ranked #1 since her idol (and recent confidant) Steffi Graf and, at 28, the oldest woman to ever make her debut in the top spot.
Three Grand Slam Finals. Her first #usopen title. What a year for @AngeliqueKerber! @Chase https://t.co/semCrmBcx1
— US Open Tennis (@usopen) September 10, 2016
Kerber would go on to reach the WTA Finals championship match (a loss to Dominika Cibulkova) and finish the season at #1.
Her win in NYC ended Serena Williams' record-tying (w/ Graf from 1987-91) streak of 186 consecutive weeks in the #1 ranking. Though she lost in the semifinals for a second straight year (this time to Pliskova, who became the fourth player to defeat *both* Williams sisters in the same slam -- the first to do so since Kim Clijsters in '09 -- as she'd defeated Venus in the Round of 16), Serena *did* manage to pass Roger Federer on the all-time career slam match win list during the tournament.
Pliskova, the first Czech finalist in New York since Helena Sukova in 1993, had never reached the 4th Round of a major before her '16 runner-up performance. She and Kerber had met earlier that summer in the Cincinnati final, with Pliskova winning and denying the German the #1 ranking. She "consoled" (though some thought it to be something else) Kerber in the post-match ceremony, noting that "maybe next time" she'd get the win and the top spot.
Kerber took her at her word, apparently, as she rose to #1 (Graf last the spot in 1997) following her defeat of Pliskova at Flushing Meadows. The Czech would go on to claim the #1 ranking *from* Kerber the following July.
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A year after being unable to compete in the U.S. Open doubles competition due to injury, Bethanie Mattek-Sands & Lucie Safarova (aka "Team Bucie") won their third slam as a team, defeating '14 Open champs Makarova/Vesnina in the semis and then top-seeded (and reigning RG champs) Caroline Garcia & Kristina Mladenovic in a 2-6/7-6(5)/6-4 final.
Let the celebration begin! @BMATTEK and @luciesafarova are your 2016 #usopen Women's Doubles Champions! @Chase https://t.co/qx6dQT9A7F
— US Open Tennis (@usopen) September 11, 2016
They are the #USOpen women double #champions @BMATTEK & @luciesafarova defeated the French @Redfoo #fans #congrats pic.twitter.com/sRWTgLUbFM
— corinne dubreuil (@corinnedubreuil) September 11, 2016
Mattek-Sands & Safarova would ultimately win five slam crowns from 2015-17, though they'd come up a Wimbledon title short of completing a Career Doubles Slam together. At the '16 U.S. Open, both had arrived fresh off having won medals at the Rio Olympics, with BMS winning Gold in Mixed with Jack Sock, and Safarova Bronze in Women's Doubles with Barbora Strycova.
Germany's Laura Siegemund grabbed her first career slam title in the Mixed doubles, teaming with Mate Pavic to defeat the all-U.S. duo of CoCo Vandeweghe and Rajeev Ram. The duo swept through their five matches without dropping a set.
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Draw notes:
* - the new Grandstand court debuted, along with the new retractable roof on Ashe Stadium, forever ending the days of time-filling TV replays (including the '91 Jimmy Connors vs. Aaron Krickstein Labor Day classic) during long rain delays.
* - after having become the first Turkish woman to win a slam MD match in Paris that spring, Cagla Buyukakcay won another in New York over Irina Falconi.
* - in the 1st Round, Madison Keys and Alison Riske played the latest-ending women's match in U.S. Open history, with Keys wrapping up a 4-6/7-6(5)/6-2 win at 1:48 a.m. in the tournament's first edition of what would be multiple episodes over the years of "Late Night with Madison." Riske has been two points from the win in the 2nd set.
* - in a 2nd Round match, (now near Top 10) Brit Johanna Konta defeated Tsvetana Pironkova in a three-setter, winning 6-2/5-7/6-2 after seemingly having been on the verge of retirement.
Played in the middle of the afternoon, with the heat and humidity (perhaps deceptively) at its worst, the 2016 AO semifinalist and Stanford champ Konta suddenly (but "gracefully," as she would wryly note) went down in a heap while serving to stay in the 2nd set (down BP, at 5-6, in fact, after missing on a first serve). Dropping her racket and going to a knee, Konta was audibly wheezing and gasping for breath, and was soon on her back, wrapped in ice packs and wet towels while she waited for medical attention and the chair umpire kept a watchful eye on her as she ran around to get things organized and the correct personnel to the court as quickly as possible. Once the trainers got there, Konta was treated and, eventually, made it back to her chair. "My whole body is in shock," she said, as the trainers told her to close her eyes and concentrate on breathing.
Johanna #Konta has collapsed at #usopen. Now receiving medical aid. pic.twitter.com/lrXJDWiQKI
— Journalisti (@Journalisti) August 31, 2016
Jo Konta on the ground and getting treated by physios. May be heat distress, but no confirmation. pic.twitter.com/rUDZKIySj5
— WTA Insider (@WTA_insider) August 31, 2016
In surprisingly quick fashion, she soon returned to the baseline, but only to serve her second serve (well long), securing the break for Pironkova and knotting the match at one set each. After a break between sets, Konta came back seemingly none the worse for wear. She got an early break lead over Pironkova, led 2-0, and never looked back, putting away a victory that was anything but routine.
"I gracefully fell...I started shaking. My heart speeded up, and my vision just started...yeah." Konta recounting moment to doc #USOpen
— Ben Rothenberg (@BenRothenberg) August 31, 2016
* - Anastasia Sevastova defeated reigning Roland Garros champ Garbine Muguruza (#3 seed) in the 2nd Round en route to reaching her first career slam QF. She was the first Latvian to get so far in a major since Larisa Neiland in Wimbledon in 1994. Sevastova had been retired from the sport for nearly two years due to multiple injuries and illnesses from 2013-15.
Via: WTA First Grand Slam Quarterfinal!
— SOULFULTENNIS (@SOULFULTENNIS) September 5, 2016
Anastasija Sevastova makes #USOpen Quarterfinals with a 6-4, 7-5 win over pic.twitter.com/5XOoYDOJRb
* - fresh off having shockingly won Olympic Gold in Rio, Puerto Rico's Monica Puig lost on Day 1 to Zheng Saisai, becoming the first newly-honored Olympic singles champ to lose so early at Flushing Meadows.
Less than a month earlier, Puig had become Puerto Rico's first Gold medalist of any kind (and first female medalist, period) when she put on a show that included wins over RG champ Muguruza, former Wimbledon winner Petra Kvitova and AO champ (and eventual U.S. winner) Kerber in a three-set final. It was the performance of the year in 2016, as well as quite possibly the performance of the entire decade.
Lets give them something to talk about!!! Vamos por esa medalla!!!! ???????? #EquipoPUR #Tenis #JuegosOlimpicos pic.twitter.com/YGbggnMAn7
— Monica Puig (@MonicaAce93) August 9, 2016
Kerber and Kvitova filled out the rest of the singles medal stand...
/* - Croatia's Ana Konjuh defeated Aga Radwanska to reach her first career slam QF. Two months earlier at Wimbledon, Konjuh had lost it the 2nd Round to Radwanska after having held 3 MP, only to injure her ankle when stepping on a ball during a point and then ultimately losing a 9-7 3rd set.
* - two years after making noise as a 15-year old, CiCi Bellis qualified and returned to the U.S. Open MD, reaching the 3rd Round. In 2017, she'd reach the Top 35 at age 18 and play in the 3rd Round at Roland Garros, garnering the tour's "Newcomer of the Year" award. But in 2018, elbow, arm & wrist injuries took her out of the game as she underwent four surgeries in less than a year. As the decade comes to a close, she hasn't played since March '18.
Firsts & lasts:
* - former U.S. Open singles quarterfinalist (2009) and MX champ (2011) Melanie Oudin made her final U.S. Open appearance. After having won an opening qualifying round match over Caroline Dolehide, Oudin fell to Myrtille Georges a round later. The win had been her first at the tournament since the final round of '14 Open qualifying, and was just her second qualifying appearance since 2012. By the time she retired at age 25 in August 2017, Oudin's career had been beset by illness (a muscle-damaging condition) and arrhythmia since her early exploits. After reaching the QF in '09, Oudin was just 1-3 in MD matches at Flushing Meadows the rest of her career.
* - 14-year old qualifying wild card Amanda Anisimova, the RG girls finalist, played her first pro women's match of any kind in the opening Q-round, defeating #17-seeded Veronica Cepede Royg 3 & 4. She fell in a 3rd set TB to Eri Hozumi a round later. She'd return a year later and win the girls title at Flushing Meadow.
* - Japan's Naomi Osaka made her U.S. Open debut, defeating #28-seed CoCo Vandeweghe in the 1st Round and advancing to the 3rd Round (the third major in '16 at which she debuted by winning two MD matches). There she lost to #8 seed Madison Keys in three sets, squandering a 5-1 3rd set lead after twice serving for the match. Keys won the deciding tie-break 7-3.
The thrill of victory; the agony of defeat. @Madison_Keys escapes a valiant effort from Naomi Osaka. pic.twitter.com/PLKEzkwVJA
— Ash Marshall (@AMarshallSport) September 2, 2016
A year later, Keys would reach the women's final, while the year after that Osaka would *win* the title, after defeating Keys in the semis.
* - Belgian qualifier Elise Mertens made her slam debut. In 2019, she'd reach the Open semifinals.
* - former world #1 Ana Ivanovic played her final professional match, a 1st Round loss to Denisa Allertova. It was the Serb's fifth straight defeat that season. She didn't play again in '16, and announced her retirement in late December.
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Kayla Day d. Viktoria Kuzmova 6-3 | 6-2 to win US Open juniors title (GETTY) pic.twitter.com/uQrsMe3jff
— Joe Fleming (@ByJoeFleming) September 11, 2016
Kayla Day became the third U.S. girl to win the junior singles since the start of the decade, after just one ('08 CoCo Vandeweghe) has previously been crowned champion since 1995. Day defeated Slovak Viktoria Kuzmova by a score of 3 & 2 in the final.
The two semifinalists who *didn't* make the final were two more North Americans, Bannerette Sofia Kenin (lost to Kuzmova) and Canada's Bianca Andreescu (Day). Three years later, Andreescu would be crowned the women's champion in New York.
Pumped for semis tomorrow???? #????represent #USOpen pic.twitter.com/Q5T0JSYN2f
— Bianca (@Bandreescu_) September 9, 2016
U.S. wild cards Jada Hart & Ena Shibahara defeated fellow Bannerettes Day & Caroline Dolehide to claim the girls doubles. Shibahara began representing Japan in 2019.
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Due to the Paralympic games, wheelchair competition wasn't held at Flushing Meadows in 2016. In Rio, new world #1 Jiske Griffioen swept the Golds, defeating Aniek Van Koot in the singles final (while Yui Kamiji won Bronze), and then joining with her to win the doubles with a victory over countrywomen Marjolein Buis & Diede de Groot.
For 19-year old de Groot, the Paralympics were her top event debut. The teenager reached the singles semis (falling to Griffioen in a 3rd set TB, then losing the Bronze Medal match vs. Kamiji). At the season-ending Masters competitions, de Groot reached the singles SF and won the doubles title with Lucy Shuker.
De Groot (aka "Diede the Great) didn't make her slam debut until the '17 AO, but by the end of the decade had completed a Career Slam in singles *and* doubles, becoming the first in the sport's history to win all eight majors. She won 15 slam s/d crowns in the final three years of the 2010's, becoming the dominant women's WC player in the world... and quite possibly laying the foundation for a 2020's run at some of mentor Esther Vergeer's longstanding slam wheelchair title records.
CITY SIGHTS:
Simona Shortz!...
The Arthur Ashe Stadium roof debuts. Ta-dah!!...
* - "When I was a kid I was always dreaming to be #1 and win grand slams. All the dreams came true this year and I'm just trying to enjoy every moment on court and off court. ... It’s the best year in my career. It’s just incredible. Everything started here in 2011 and now I’m... standing here with the trophy. It means so much to me." - Angelique Kerber
Pure happiness. #USOpen pic.twitter.com/EuGjQ5WGht
— WTA (@WTA) September 10, 2016
As the decade came to a close, a "changing of the guard" began to occur...
The U.S. Open played host to the spectacular closing act of "The Summer of Sloane," as Sloane Stephens had started the summer hard court season without a win on the year after returning from foot surgery and an 11-month tour absence, then ended it as a maiden slam champ.
"Future" Sloane, after years of sterling promise but frustrating inconsistency that had left her nothing more than simply a "Current" Sloane, was suddenly and unexpectedly unleashed upon the WTA landscape during the summer months as Stephens reached back-to-back Premier semis in Toronto and Cincinnati, notched three Top 10 wins, and rose from #957 to #17 in the rankings in less than two months, completing a 15-2 hard court run with a 6-3/6-0 win in the final over fellow first-time slam finalist, countrywoman and good fried Madison Keys in the first all-U.S. final at Flushing Meadows since 2002.
.@SloaneStephens is your 2017 #USOpen champion!
— US Open Tennis (@usopen) September 9, 2017
She defeats Keys 6-3, 6-0.
?????? pic.twitter.com/EXuTr0TKmk
Two days earlier, we'd witnessed the unofficial, long-awaited hand-out-the-commemorative-cigars birth of "Future Sloane" in the closing stages of Stephens' semifinal win over Venus Williams, when she fired a backhand winner down the line to avoid going match point down to the seven-time slam singles champion. From that moment forward, Stephens, who'd escaped a 3-1 3rd set hole vs. Anastasija Sevastova a round earlier in the QF, fully embraced her destiny and didn't look back, becoming the second unseeded U.S. champ in the Open era ('09 Clijsters).
With hard work and precise shotmaking deep in the 3rd set, @SloaneStephens reaches the #USOpen finals! ?? ???? @MBUSA pic.twitter.com/MivLEosR8Y
— US Open Tennis (@usopen) September 8, 2017
As of September 9, 2017 all the documents (and one big check for $3.7 million dollars) were signed, sealed and delivered. Future Sloane and Current Sloane, with their powers combined, were gloriously one in the same.
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Stephens, Keys, Williams and CoCo Vandeweghe combined to give the '17 Open the first four-strong set of Bannerette slam semifinalists since the 1985 Wimbledon, and the first such quartet in New York since 1981.
While we'd been seeing signs of life on this front for a few years, including previous slam semifinals runs (all of them in Melbourne from 2013-17) from three of the historic group of four U.S. semifinalists at this Open (with the fourth of the fabulous four being the most fab of them all, two-time '17 slam finalist Williams at age 37, who was the first to *twice* compete in slam semis a full decade apart, as in 1997/2007/2017), the one thing this NewGen of U.S. players had yet to do was win a slam, or even reach a major final. Since Serena had claimed her first slam title in 1999, and Venus her own in 2000, only Lindsay Davenport (once in 2000) and Jennifer Capriati (three in 2001-02) have managed to get the red-white-and-blue into the winner's circle at a major. Until this '17 U.S. final, that is, when Keys and Stephens met to decide who would be both "the next" and "the first" to etch their name into U.S. tennis history in the first all-Bannerette slam final to not include a Williams since 1990, and the first without the sisters to feature two U.S.-born women since 1979.
Friends, teammates and unlikely slam finalists after 2016 injuries (Stephens' foot, Keys' wrist) delayed the start of their seasons, and '17 surgeries made their level of play a question mark for the remainder of the year, neither Sloane nor Madison would have ever predicted their ultimate New York fate. Until that summer, there was no real reason to think that it wouldn't be 2018 before they might hit their stride once again. But it was on North American hard courts that all that changed, with Keys winning in Stanford and Stephens reaching back-to-back Premier semifinals before their dueling exploits at Flushing Meadows. At times at this slam, Keys had looked to be a dominant -- and more consistent -- force without peer, while Stephens' grit and inner desire (once questioned in her first go-around with stardom) were traits that were necessary to pull her through several tight matches.
Meanwhile, Williams had reached back to her glory days to defeat Petra Kvitova (who'd led 3-1 in all three sets, yet lost two of the three) in the QF and reach a *third* slam semifinal in a season for the first time since 2002. Vandeweghe, the '08 girls champ at Flushing Meadows, had knocked off another Czech, '16 runner-up Karolina Pliskova (the #1 seed) to reach her second (w/ AO) major semifinal of the season. Keys had reached a previous slam SF in Melbourne in 2015, two years after Stephens had done the same.
Draw notes:
* - Reigning Australian Open champ Serena Williams missed the U.S. Open for the first time since 2010, having announced soon after her win in Melbourne that she'd been in the early stages of pregnancy during her title run. During the Open, Williams made late summer headlines once again by delivering her first child, daughter Alexis Olympia, on September 1.
* - defending champ Angelique Kerber's run was short-lived, ended uncerimoniously in the 1st Round by 19-year old Naomi Osaka, 6-3/6-1. The German was the second DC to lose in New York in her first match ('05 Kuznetsova). The win was the first over a Top 10 player in the career of Osaka, who'd been 0-9 in such matches, and had squandered a 5-1 3rd set lead vs. Madison Keys in her most recent U.S. Open appearance in the 3rd Round in 2016.
A year later, Osaka would win the women's title.
* - meanwhile, Maria Sharapova made her grand slam return following her 16-month suspension due to a failed drug test at the 2016 Australian Open. A wild card, she drew #2-seed Simona Halep in the 1st Round, a match predictably scheduled on Ashe Stadium court on Night 1.
In her first U.S. Open appearance since 2014 (and just her second since '12), Sharapova won 6-4/4-6/6-3 in 2:44 in one of the best Night 1 matches under the lights in tournament history, improving to 7-0 vs. the Romanian in yet another close match in their head-to-head series. Sharapova led 6-4/4-1 and had a BP for 5-1, but 1-for-11 numbers on BP in the 2nd set allowed Halep to force things to a 3rd. With Sharapova serving for the match at 5-3 in the final set, Halep had a BP chance before the Russian served out what turned out to arguably be her biggest slam victory in her comeback for the remainder of the decade (though she did post victories over Karolina Pliskova and Caroline Wozniacki in 2018 and '19, respectively). She went on to reach the Round of 16, her first of four such results in eight major appearances from 2017-19 (including a QF in Paris in '18). She'd reached the 4th Round or better in eight straight slams (and 14/15) prior to her suspension.
* - Latvian Anastasija Sevastova reached her second straight QF, defeating Sharapova in three sets in the 4th Round.
Estonian Kaia Kanepi became the first qualifier to reach the U.S. Open quarterfinals since Barbara Gerken in 1981.
* - Top-seeded Karolina Pliskova's loss in the quarterfinals led to Wimbledon champ Garbine Muguruza assuming the #1 singles ranking for the first time following the tournament.
* - the "breakout Bannerette" role was played by Jennifer Brady, who reached her second slam Round of 16 (AO) of the season in her U.S. Open debut. Meanwhile, Shelby Rogers upset #25 Dasha Gavrilova in the 2nd Round in a 3:31 match which broke the women's U.S. Open match length record. Rogers trailed 4-2 in the 3rd set, winning on her fifth MP.
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Firsts & lasts:
* - Czech Marketa Vondrousova made her U.S. Open debut, while Bannerette Sofia Kenin (a wild card) recorded her first career slam MD win in the 1st Round over #32-seed Lauren Davis en route to the 3rd Round.
* - Francesca Schiavone played in her final U.S. Open, though her most recent match win in New York was all the way back in 2011. The former RG champ would arrive in NYC to announce her retirement (and hint at her desire to one day coach a grand slam winner) at the Open in 2018.
Jelena Jankovic's appearance in New York, which ended with a 1st Round loss to Petra Kvitova, would be the former #1 and '08 U.S. Open finalist's final singles match of the decade, though she has to "officially" retire.
* - 17-year old Canadian Bianca Andreescu made her women's qualifying round debut at the U.S. Open, losing in the opening round in a 3rd set TB to Liu Fangzhou. She'd lose in the first round of qualifying again in 2018, then win the women's title in 2019.
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???????? (?? @cameraworkusa) #usopen pic.twitter.com/ctvxSfnyLo
— World TeamTennis (@WorldTeamTennis) September 10, 2017
Martina Hingis picked up career slams #24 and #25 in the women's doubles and mixed, victories that would give her her final major titles as she'd retire once again at season's end. With Hingis playing alongside 2019 partner Latisha Chan, they defeated Chan's sister Hao-ching (w/ Zhang Shuai) in the QF, then Hingis' former partner Sania Mirza (w/ Peng Shuai) in the SF. A 6-3/6-2 win in the final over Czechs Lucie Hradecka & Katerina Siniakova completed Chan/Hingis' no-sets-lost title run.
2016 champs Bethanie Mattek-Sands & Lucie Safarova were unable to defend their title due to BMS' knee injury at Wimbledon, at which the duo had been seeking to win a fourth straight major title.
Hingis teamed with Jamie Murray to win the mixed crown, defeating Chan Hao-ching & Michael Venus in the final. It was the second straight slam won by the pair (w/ Hingis' retirement, Murray would win in New York in 2018-19 with Mattek-Sands).
The MX title was Hingis' sixth in her final comeback (2013-17), combining with her four WD major wins to give her a final tally of 5-13-7 career slam titles in WS/WD/MX.
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In the women's wheelchair singles final, top-seeded Yui Kamiji made her case for holding onto her high position in the women's game, as the 23-year old from Japan held off the latest rush from 20-year old #2-seed Diede de Groot. In the first singles match-up between the two on a slam stage, Kamiji claimed her fifth career slam singles crown with a 7-5/6-2 victory. The 23-year old from Japan won three of the four singles slams in 2017 (de Groot won SW19), as well as the RG & WI doubles (her 10th & 11th slam titles).
A pregnant Jordanne Whiley, the '15 singles champ at the most recent U.S. Open wheelchair event, missed the '17 event due to her pregnancy, as she would the '18 event.
The win allowed Kamiji to enter 2018 with a chance to become the first player to win all eight slam singles & doubles crowns, needing only a singles win at Wimbledon to complete the Career Slam set. As it turned out, it was de Groot (who had won just two of the eight titles through the '17 Open) who'd become the first to accomplish the feat mid-way through the '19 season.
De Groot claimed that second career slam win in the doubles, teaming with countrywoman Marjolein Buis to defeat Dana Mathewson & Aniek Van Koot in the final to win her first slam doubles crown.
16-year old Amanda Anisimova won the all-Bannerette girls singles final over 13-year old Coco Gauff, the third straight such U.S.-dominated championship match in the' 17 junior slam season (featuring five different players, along with Whitney Osuigwe, Claire Liu and Ann Li). Her 6-0/6-2 win made it three straight girls slam champs from the U.S., four at the last five majors, two in a row at Flushing Meadows, and four in seven in New York. Gauff didn't go down meekly, saving ten MP on serve in the final game of the match before Anisimova finally closed out the win.
Olga Danilovic & Marta Kostyuk shared the girls doubles crown, defeating Lea Boskovic & Wang Xiyu in the final. It was Danilovic's second consecutive '17 girls doubles slam title.
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CITY SIGHTS:
Aga Radwanska's frilly flower dress...
Maria Sharapova's "crystals and lace" dress vs. Halep...
Sloane Stephens receives her $3.7m check...
* - "It's primetime, baby. I love it!" - Maria Sharapova, upon defeating Simona Halep on Night 1
* - "It's difficult, but who better to be out there with than with a friend?" - Madison Keys, on facing Sloane Stephens in the final
* - "I should just retire now. I told Maddy, I'm never going to be able to top this." - Sloane Stephens
* - "It shows you what happens when something you love is taken away from you." - Sloane Stephens
BEST. DAY. EVER. ?????? pic.twitter.com/R8ARc09Qwb
— Sloane Stephens (@SloaneStephens) September 10, 2017
For the second straight year, the U.S. Open played host to a major breakthrough slam moment as big-hitting 20-year old Naomi Osaka stormed her way to her maiden slam crown, proving her springtime breakout title in Indian Wells had just scratched the surface of what she was capable of achieving. Osaka dropped just one set en route to becoming Japan's first slam champion, the youngest winner at Flushing Meadows since 2006 (Maria Sharapova), the third maiden slam champ of 2018 and the fifth in the last seven majors.
Your 2018 #USOpen champion...@Naomi_Osaka_ ???? pic.twitter.com/yAPFaezBpz
— US Open Tennis (@usopen) September 8, 2018
All THAT was what was important. But still.
During the match, Osaka had been awarded (via penalty) a point and a game during the course of a contest which she totally controlled for all but a few-minutes-long stretch during a tournament in which no player was better than she and at the end of which she didn't allow her comparable lack of big event experience to spoil her efforts against the greatest champion she'll ever face, on the biggest stage on which she'll ever play. No woman at the '18 U.S. Open deserved the title more, and no one could have deserved how things spun out of control in the final games any less. But still.
Once again at Flushing Meadows, as had happened in 2009 *and* 2011, the plight of Serena Williams, the 6-2/6-4 final runner-up, in a losing effort (yet again) dominated the news cycle due to (yet again) an uncalled for angry outburst from the future Hall of Famer and living legend after she'd been subjected to the enforcement of the written rules of play and conduct that govern the sport.
The whole distraction began when Williams' coach, Patrick Mouratoglou (and thereby, Serena, as well) was cited early in the 2nd set by chair umpire Carlos Ramos for an attempt to send her a signal from the stands. Later, Williams said that she was unaware of the signal, but Mouratoglou admitted to the offense after the match. Though he countered with an "everybody does it" excuse, it rendered moot any objection to the generally-known-to-be-a-strict-rule-enforcer Ramos' decision.
Soon after, Osaka saved her 19th consecutive BP with a winner to end a 19-shot rally, then saved two more (one w/ an ace). On her fourth BP chance in game #4, Williams got the break via a backhand error from Osaka, taking a 3-1 lead. But rather than use the moment on which to build the foundation for a comeback, Williams' own serve let her down. Up 30/15, she had back-to-back DF to fall down BP. A backhand error gave the break back to Osaka, and Williams crushed a racket in anger and frustration, earning herself a second code violation and a point penalty (the second step following the coaching infraction).
When she learned of the penalty, rather than accept it and go on, Williams berated Ramos, demanding "an apology" for the *first* violation earlier in the set, flashing an anger similar to, though not on the level of, her verbal assault and threats against a lineswoman in the '09 Open semifinal after a foot fault call.
During the next changeover, Williams, being beaten to the punch at nearly every turn between the lines by her opponent, again turned her full attention to Ramos, refusing to let go of the earlier (actual) coaching violation and later point penalty (after actually breaking a racket), continuing to blast the umpire with heated accusations that included calling him a "thief" who "stole a point" from her, publicly impugning his integrity for enforcing -- and this was the important part -- the actual rules. It was the straw that broke the camel's (and nearly the match's) back, and Ramos issued a third code violation for verbal abuse, resulting in a full game penalty (as the rules state) that took the game out of a serving Osaka's hands and put her up 5-3.
Once Williams got wind of the (new, or newly elevated) situation, she exploded, as expected. She called out the tournament referee -- though for what is unknown, since everything played out pretty much according to the book, whether she chose to acknowledge as much or not -- and ranted about being treated "unfairly," commenting about men's players saying worse without being penalized (she was right on the latter assertion, though maybe not when they do it with two code violations already in the book). Naturally, the just-as-uninformed (but just as vocal) New York crowd chose to side with Williams, creating an uneasy situation as Osaka worked her way toward closing out the match and winning her first major title.
All in all, it was a bad look. One, honestly, not seen on Ashe since, well, probably the last time Williams was involved in another ugly incident there.
Finally, Osaka had the chance to serve out the match at 5-4, while all eyes (and cameras) were still on Williams. Again, the newcomer didn't blink and/or emotionally implode as her more experienced idol (and, on this day, opponent) had earlier. She fired a big serve up the middle to get within two points of the title at 30/15. An ice-cold ace -- the kind Williams has blasted under similar circumstances in the past -- gave her her first MP. After Williams saved it with a down the line winner, Osaka got off another big wide serve which Williams could only struggle to just get a racket on, ending the contest and making her the sport's newest superstar.
Suddenly, as "The Great Wave of Osaka" crashed onto the shores of the WTA, it was a whole new world... along with a large, lingering dose of the unwanted old one.
What followed the match was maybe the most surreal trophy presentation in grand slam history. The usual act of singling out the championship umpire was not followed (for fear of a riot breaking out amongst unruly "fans"), and the crowd (mostly uninformed of the progression of the rules violations throughout the controversy, then confused and angered when the penalties were rightfully enforced) chose in the aftermath to boo anyone and everyone with a microphone as if *they* had anything to do with it (though not Serena, who bore as much or more responsibility than anyone, it should be noted).
Finally, Williams remembered who she was, and (playing the role of arsonist-turned-firefighter) spoke up to defuse the situation, calling for an end to the boos so that Osaka would not have her moment spoiled (though it may have been too late). It worked, up to a point, or at least avoided a *truly* wretched embarrassment to play out.
Still, Osaka seemed as sorry for winning as she was excited as she should have been for having done so. That it all happened against her idol, too, added another layer of unfortunate coincidence.
Afterward, Williams' actions, while rightfully condemned by some, would be propped up and excused by many (some with high enough standing to know better) who chose to attempt to portray her as a "crusader" fighting oppression within the boundaries of the sport rather than as a superstar who now has a long and sordid history of sporting her worst behavior in her home slam precisely when the fates have turned against her. For all that Williams has done and will do in her career, it's a fact that will forever hover around her legacy, even if it will likely only do so in footnote form once an appropriate amount of time has passed and memories fade.
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Ash Barty & CoCo Vandweweghe defeated Timea Babos & Kristina Mladenovic, the reigning AO champs, 3–6/7–6(2)/7–6(6) in the women's doubles final, winning the maiden slam crown for both after having saved two MP in the 2nd set. The pair converted on their third MP in the 3rd set. Barty had been 0-4 in slam WD finals between 2013-17 while partnering with Casey Dellacqua.
Bethanie Mattek-Sands teamed with defending champ Jamie Murry (w/ Hingis '17) to win the MX title, defeating Alicja Rosolska & Nikola Mektic in the final. The pair won match TB's in both the SF and the final. The MX win was the third of BMS' career, and got her within a Wimbledon title of a Career Mixed Slam, having won previous titles in Melbourne (2012) and Paris (2015).
.@matteksands & @jamie_murray celebrate winning the US Open Mixed Doubles title pic.twitter.com/M8xe5GnbPl
— Jimmie48 Photography (@JJlovesTennis) September 8, 2018
In the MX competition, 14-year old junior Coco Gauff made her slam draw debut alongside Chris Eubanks. The wild cards upset #3-seeds Chan Hao-ching & Henri Kontinen in the 1st Round before losing a round later to eventual finalists Rosolska/Mektic.
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Draw notes:
* - the new Louis Armstrong Stadium debuted, replacing the temporary stadium that had filled its spot on the USTA grounds in 2017
* - Anastasija Sevastova joined countrywoman Alona Ostapenko ('17 RG champ and '18 Wimb. SF) in Latvian tennis history, following up her back-to-back U.S. Open QF runs with her maiden career slam semifinal result after getting a measure of vengeance against defending Open champion Sloane Stephens by defeating the Bannerette in the quarterfinals one year after having lost to her in the same round despite having led 3-1 in the 3rd set.
* - Serena and Venus Williams met in the 3rd Round, providing still another opportunity for their storied history and special connection to be revisited on the big stage. Unfortunately, that was about *all* there was to the match, as Serena won 6-1/6-2. Venus' three games won tied for the fewest by either sister in a match in their 30 career meetings. Serena won 88% of her first serve points, fired 10 aces and faced just one BP.
* - ball-crushing Aryna Sabalenka's 3rd Round upset of #5 Petra Kvitova on Louis Armstrong gave the court something of a "doomsday" reputation in its inaugural tournament, as the #1, #2 and #4 ( as well as Garbine Muguruza and Kiki Bertens) all also saw their Open journeys end on the court.
Sabalenka's win advanced her to her maiden slam Round of 16, where she faced off with eventual champion Osaka in a "Boom-Shaka-Osaka" match-up in which the Belarusian took the only set off the Japanese star that she'd lose all tournament.
* - #1 seed Simona Halep, the reigning Roland Garros champ, lost in the 1st Round at Flushing Meadows for the second straight year (again on Day 1), falling to Kaia Kanepi. Her defeat made her the first #1 seed to exit in the 1st Round in New York in the Open era.
#2 Caroline Wozniacki lost in the 2nd Round to Lesia Tsurenko, making the '18 event the first U.S. Open (and just the second slam in the Open era) at which neither of the top two seeds reached the 3rd Round.
* - two-time finalist Victoria Azarenka, now a mother and having gone through a long custody fight over her son, received a wild card into the MD and made her first appearance at the Open since 2015. She lost in the 3rd Round to Sloane Stephens. Before her absence, Azarenka had posted RU-RU-QF-QF resuts in New York from 2012-15.
* - Carla Suarez-Navarro's Round of 16 win over Maria Sharapova ended the Russian's 22-match U.S. Open night session unbeaten streak. The match took place on the Spaniard's 30th birthday.
Meanwhile, Sharapova's fellow Original Hordette Vera Zvonareva, the 2010 U.S. Open runner-up, qualified and played in her first MD match at Flushing Meadows since 2011. She lost in the 2nd Round to Aryna Sabalenka. Since her last appearance, 34-year old Zvonareva had undergone shoulder surgery in 2013 and taken a one and a half year hiatus in 2013-14, then another two-year break from 2015-17 during which she got married and had a baby.
Zvonareva posted her first Top 10 win in seven years in 2018 and returned to the Top 100 in January '19.
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Firsts and lasts:
* - Amanda Anisimova ('17 U.S. girls champ) and Margarita Gasparyan (after three knee surgeries, playing in her first major since the '16 Wimbledon) made their U.S. Open MD debuts
* - Whitney Osuigwe ('18 RG girls champ), Dayana Yastremska and Karolina Muchova (a qualifier, she reached the 3rd Rd.) made their slam debuts. In the 2nd Round, #202 Muchova upset Garbine Muguruza in a match on Armstrong that ended at 1:08 a.m.
* - 39-year old Patty Schnyder touched on *both* ends of the first and last discussion. After making her way through qualifying (as the oldest U.S. Open qualifier ever), she played in her first slam MD match since the 2011 Roland Garros (and her first at the U.S. Open since '10). The Swiss, former slam semifinalist ('04 AO) and two-time U.S. Open quarterfinalist ('98/'08) had retired in May 2011, and had a daughter in 2014. She returned to tennis in mid-2015, and it took over three years for her to work her way back to the slam level. She'd lost in three previous 2017-18 attempts in slam qualifying events.
Schnyder lost to Maria Sharapova in the 1st Round (an Armstrong night match on Day 2) 6-2/7-6(6) in their first meeting in a decade. It turned out to her slam swan song, as Schnyder played just one more match (a qualifying loss vs. Varvara Lepchenko in Luxembourg in October) before retiring again in November. Soon after, she announced that she was pregnant with her second child, another daughter born in July 2019.
* - former Wimbledon finalist and world #2 Aga Radwanska, unseeded for the first time at a major since the 2007 Wimbledon, lost to Tatjana Maria in the 1st Round in what would be her final slam appearance. The best Polish women's player of all time, the resident magician of the WTA tour announced her retirement at the end of her '18 campaign.
Wang Xiyu became the first Chinese girl (mainland, so no TPE, as Liang En-shuo became the first Taiwanese girl to do it in Melbourne in January ) to be crowned a slam junior singles champ, defeating French Pastry Clara Burel 7-6(4)/6-2 in the singles final. At Wimbledon that summer, Wang and Wang Xinyu had become the first all-CHN duo to win a slam GD crown. The wins were among the earliest signs of the long-awaited move being made by the "Li Na Generation" in China.
Wang would become the girls #1 in October. Burel, who reached the finals but lost at the Australian and U.S. Opens, as well as the Youth Olympics, in 2018 would go on to win the Junior Masters title and finish the year as the girls #1.
THe girls QF were a collection of high-end achievers, as Wang and Burel were joined by the likes of girls #1 Coco Gauff ('17 U.S. RU, '18 RG W), and future junior #1's Leylah Annie Fernandez ('19 AO RU & RG W) and Maria Camila Osorio Serrano ('19 U.S. W).
In the all-U.S. girls doubles final, Gauff & Caty McNally (aka "McCoco") defeated Hailey Baptiste & Delayna Hewitt.
Wheelchair #1 Diede de Groot won her first U.S. Open women's wheelchair singles crown, avenging her 2017 loss in the final by defeating #2-seeded defending champ Yui Kamiji 6-2/6-3 one day after they combined to take the doubles title. It was the 21-year old Dutch woman's fourth career slam singles win, tying Jiske Griffioen for third all-time behind Esther Vergeer and Kamiji. In a sign of another "changing of the guard," the victory was de Groot's sixth win in seven meetings against Kamiji over the previous year, after having lost eleven of the first thirteen matches in their head-to-head series.
Top seeded de Groot & Kamiji had earlier combined for the women's doubles championship, defeating #2 Marjolein Buis & Aniek Van Koot 6-3/6-4. It was the third slam win in 2018 for both, as they combined to win at SW19, while Kamiji won the AO with Buis and de Groot took the RG title with Aniek van Koot.
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CITY SIGHTS:
The 50th Open era edition of the U.S. Open saw the introduction of a new tournament logo...
Serena's coat and tutu...
* - "You owe me an apology. Say you are sorry. How dare you insinuate that I was cheating. You stole a point from me. You are a thief!" - Serena Williams, to chair umpire Carlos Ramos in the final
* - "When I step on the court, I'm not a Serena fan -- I'm just a tennis player playing another tennis player. But when I hugged her at the net, I felt like a little kid again." - Naomi Osaka
Following in the late-decade footsteps of Sloane Stephens and Naomi Osaka, 19-year old Canadian Bianca Andreescu's remarkable breakout season hit still another zenith with her maiden slam run at the U.S. Open in her *first* career appearance in the MD at Flushing Meadows.
While she, like Osaka in '18, defeated Serena Williams in a straight sets final -- 6-3/7-5 -- the multi-faceted game of Andreescu saw her improve upon many of the accomplishments the Japanese star had pulled off a year earlier. The first Canadian slam champ, she was the first teen to claim a major title since 2006, the youngest since 2004, and the first to ever win in her U.S. debut (Venus Williams had been the last player to reach the final in her first appearance in '97).
Canada’s first singles slam champion, @Bandreescu_ and her trophy at the @usopen pic.twitter.com/44ORSQPdwt
— Jimmie48 Photography (@JJlovesTennis) September 8, 2019
While the age gap between the two was the largest in major final history, Andreescu's youth never betrayed her ambition. Sporting Capriati-like power off the ground, Hingisian touch and audacity, Clijstersesque court coverage, as well as a hint of Williams' own well-timed serving prowess, Andreescu became the first slam champ born in the 2000's and moved into the Top 10 after having started the year outside the Top 150. She even managed to hold off one of Serena's patented comeback bids, as she'd rallied from 5-1 (and MP) down in the 2nd to knot the set at 5-5 (with the crowd roaring in approval), but then never won another game.
Williams' loss dropped her to 0-4 in slams finals in 2018-19 since her return to tennis after having a baby. At 37, she was oldest slam finalist in the Open era and was appearing in a record 10th U.S. Open final (and 33rd overall). She exits the decade *still* one major win away from tying Margaret Court's all-time mark of 24, as well as one win from setting a new record for Open era U.S. titles with #7. She *did* manage to tie Chris Evert's tournament record by raising her match win total at Flushing Meadows to 101, though a win in the final would have set 102 as a *new* standard, as well.
For once, a Williams loss in New York didn't include any embarrassing outbursts or outright controversy. One could make a case that Serena was cognizant of staying "inside the lines" after the chaos of the '18 final, but it might be more a case of Williams having too much respect (and a sincere like) for her opponent to lose her concentration amidst any in-match frustrations. When the two had met in the Rogers Cup final in Toronto -- a hop, skip and a jump away from Andreescu's Mississauga, Ontario hometown -- Serena had been forced to retire after just a few games due to back spasms, and seemed genuinely touched by the immediately caring reaction from the teenager (herself no stranger to a series of injuries in her young career, including a shoulder that cost her multiple months of action soon after she'd won Indian Wells earlier in the season) in the aftermath.
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Traditionally, the U.S. stars -- some of them always shinier than others before the start of the tournament -- come out to play at the Open. The 2019 version of the tournament was no different.
Qualifier Taylor Townsend shined the brightest in the early going. Years after her dust-up with the USTA as a junior, Townsend became a star in her own right with her 2nd Round upset of Wimbledon champ Simona Halep. After dropping the 1st set, lefty Townsend changed up her tactics -- adopting the style of her idol Martina Navratilova, she chose to constantly rush the net, as a serve-and-volley monster and otherwise, until she'd ultimately racked up 106 net approaches by match's end -- and Halep was never able to adequately adjust. After being unable to convert two MP at 5-4 in the 3rd, Townsend saw Halep reach MP at 6-5. She couldn't close out the win, either. Finally, the Bannerette claimed the 7-4 TB win on MP #3. It was Townsend's first career Top 10 victory, after she'd help MP but ultimately lost vs. Top 10er Kiki Bertens at Wimbledon earlier in the summer, while Halep fell in the first two rounds at the Open for the third straight year.
Townsend reached the Round of 16, where she fell in three sets to Andreescu.
Meanwhile, 15-year old Coco Gauff didn't last as long as Townsend in her U.S. Open debut, but she garnered even more attention. Fresh off her star-making Round of 16 run at Wimbledon (ended, ironically enough, by Halep), the teenage wild card reached the 3rd Round, becoming the youngest to do so at Flushing Meadows since 1996 (Anna Kournikova). There she met top seed and defending champ Naomi Osaka under the lights on Ashe in the sort of headlining "show" that U.S. Open night matches are made for.
Osaka, not unexpectedly, got the better of her junior opponent, winning 6-3/6-0. But, in the end, it wasn't the result that caused the meeting to continue to draw headlines *after* it was over, and the attention wasn't garnered because of the sort of negative situation that had occurred the *last* time Osaka played a big match on Ashe, either. Instead, it was the simple act of camaraderie and respect -- perhaps on some level because it came at a time when both qualities were seemingly in short supply on the U.S. cultural and political landscape -- shown between the players after the match that will likely cause it to live on as the two quite possibly develop a rivalry/friendship over the next decade. In the (still) long shadow of her own experiences on Ashe during and after last year's final, Osaka chose to play the role of Comforter of the Court, consoling the disappointed Gauff and even asking her to stick around for the post-match on-court interview and even get the chance to address the crowd that had so winningly supported the teenager throughout the match and tournament.
At least *someone* learned something from the '18 women's final debacle.
Gauff's doubles partner Caty McNally ("McCoco" upset #9-seeds Melichar/Peschke and reached the 3rd Rd.), nearly stole the show in *her* early round singles match, taking Serena Williams to three sets under the lights in the 2nd Round. The 17-year old, just like Andreescu in the final, had not yet been born when Williams won her maiden slam title in New York in 1999.
Meanwhile, wild card (via the USTA's Playoff Challenge) Kristie Ahn put on a breathtaking career highlight run, as the 27-year old ex-Stanford star rode the wave of what had already been a career year all the way to the Round of 16 after having not played a U.S. Open MD match since 2008, having never recorded a win in a major, and fighting against the wishes of her parents to finally get "a real job" once her tennis dream had run its course (she'd promised to give it up if her hard work hadn't produced the necessary results by the end of 2019). With wins over a pair of former slam champs (Svetlana Kuznetsova and Alona Ostapenko), Ahn found that success, becoming the first Asian-American to reach the 4th Round since Lilia Osterloh in 2000, and setting a record for the longest gap between a slam debut ('08 US) and a first MD win.
Before this week, @kristieahn had never won a Grand Slam match...
— US Open Tennis (@usopen) August 31, 2019
She now finds herself in R4 of the #USOpen after a straight-sets win over Ostapenko! pic.twitter.com/driN9iTDQM
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Draw notes:
* - for the second time in three years, Maria Sharapova drew a huge name in the 1st Round and found herself -- unseeded in her third U.S. Open back since her suspension -- under the lights on Ashe on opening night. This time her opponent wasn't Simona Halep, whom she defeated in 2017, but instead was Serena Williams, the player who has beaten her like a drum for fifteen years running.
The same scenario came about here, as Williams played a nearly perfect match, winning their first U.S. Open encounter 6-1/6-1 to extend her winning streak over Sharapova to 19 matches (she leads 20-2).
* - after having reached her maiden slam semifinal at Wimbledon in July, Elina Svitolina followed with an even better (as far as her consistent level of play and the quality/health of her opponents) semifinal result at the U.S. Open. Her run included a nighttime win over Madison Keys, dropping the Bannerette to 9-1 in career night session matches at Ashe Stadium after several seasons of her repeatedly emerging victories in a series of "Late Night with Madison" outings under the lights.
* - Wang Qiang reached her first career slam QF, defeating #2 seed and reigning RG champ Ash Barty in the Round of 16, joining countrywomen Li Na and Peng Shuai as having advanced so far in New York.
Meanwhile, Belinda Bencic returned to the QF for the first time since she reached the Final 8 in her debut Open in 2014. The Swiss had knocked off top-seeded Naomi Osaka in the Round of 16, giving her a third #1 victory in 2019 over the defending champ. The loss ended Osaka's 10-match U.S. Open winning streak, and her 17-match run in hard court slams (back-to-back majors wins in NYC and Melbourne) dating back to the previous year at Flushing Meadows.
* - Roland Garros champ Ash Barty reached the Round of 16, becoming the first Aussie to reach the 4th Round at all four majors in a single season since 1973
* - for the first time since the 2014 Australian Open (and at the U.S. Open since '12), the women's singles quarterfinal round consisted of *eight* seeded players.
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Firsts & lasts:
* - Wang Xiyu, the '18 girls champ, and Iga Swiatek both made their slam debut
* - players making their U.S. Open debuts were qualifier Anna Kalinskaya (who defeated '17 champ Sloane Stephens in the 1st Round) and some Canadian teenager. You might know her: Bianca Andreescu. Yeah, she only won the whole thing.
Even before she won the title, Andreescu had already accomplished something significant when she became the first Canadian to reach the QF in New York since Patricia Hy-Boulais in 1982, the first each the Open semis since Carling Bassett in 1984, and the first to ever reach the final.
* - Johanna Konta became the first Brit to reach the U.S. Open QF since Jo Durie in 1983
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After having already pulled off a rare "Sunshine Double" in Indian Wells and Miami earlier in the year, Elise Mertens & Aryna Sabalenka added another huge "get" to their partnership by taking the women's doubles crown -- a maiden slam win for both women -- with a 7-5/7-5 win in the final over Victoria Azarenka & Ash Barty.
Barty had been the WD defending champ (winning in '18 w/ CoCo Vandeweghe), and was looking to become the first to win the Open title in consecutive years with different partners for the first time since 2006-07. Azarenka was looking to add her first WD slam crown to her previous singles and MX titles.
Bethanie Mattek-Sands & Jamie Murray successfully defended their MX championship, defeating Chan Hao-ching/Michael Venus in the final to become the first repeat champs at Flushing Meadows since Anne Smith & Kevin Curren won back-to-back titles in 1981-82.
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In the girls singles, #4-seeded Maria Camila Osorio Serrano wrapped up her junior career with a defeat of Bannerette qualifier Alexandra Yepifanova 6-1/6-0 to become the first Colombian girl to win a girls slam crown. The 17-year old was the first South American to win a girls major since Maria-Emilia Salerni won in New York in 2000 (and first ever from a nation on the continent other than Argentina). She became the girls #1 after the U.S. Open.
Latvian Kamilla Bartone teamed with Russia's Oksana Selekhmeteva to win the junior doubles, defeating the all-Pastry duo of Aubane Droguet & Selena Janicijevic.
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After suffering a rare slam defeat in the Wimbledon singles final, wheelchair #1 Diede de Groot got right back on her previous career path at Flushing Meadows. The Dutch player once again swept both the singles and doubles titles at a major, defeating rival Yui Kamiji (#2 seed) 4-6/6-1/6-4 to defend her Open crown from a year ago, and also teaming with Aniek Van Koot to defeat Sabine Ellerbrock & KG Montjane 6-2/6-0 in doubles to win her seventh straight slam doubles title *and* complete a Grand Slam in doubles (winning all four majors w/ countrywoman Van Koot) for 2019.
The Grand Slam was Van Koot's second of her career, having won all four doubles titles in 2013 with Jiske Griffioen.
22-year old de Groot's singles win gave her five title runs in the last six slams, and seven in the last nine. Already having become the first wheelchair player to win all eight slam crowns in a career, she was one set away (the 3rd vs. countrywoman and doubles partner Van Koot at SW19) from becoming the first to win all eight in a *single season.*
As the decade ended, "Diede the Great's" (predestined?) establishment as the sport's most dominant performer this side of Esther Vergeer -- and maybe her evolution into a player who could challenge a few of her mentor's *realistic* slam records -- was nearly complete.
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CITY SIGHTS:
Serena's cloak...
And her "Purple People Eater" dress...
Mike and Spike...
??Mike and Spike??@MikeTyson and Spike Lee are in the house tonight...#USOpen pic.twitter.com/x51f9fdxYL
— US Open Tennis (@usopen) August 27, 2019
Rebel Wilson and Anna Wintour...
Coco Gauff's court dress...
And "Call me Coco" shoes...
"McCoco!"...
Teenage Dream Team ??@CocoGauff ???????? @CatyMcNally#McCoco #USOpen pic.twitter.com/ZYBjlRrTgs
— US Open Tennis (@usopen) September 1, 2019
And introducing *another* Coco... Coco Andreescu:
i love this dog, coco andreescu pic.twitter.com/tj3qES9DTj
— Becca Laurie (@imbeccable) September 5, 2019
The @Bandreescu_ credential request list went up by one as Coco Andreescu needs her own.
— Tennis.Life (@tennislifenews) August 25, 2019
The pose for the pic is epic tho.#Entourage pic.twitter.com/H992pb06De
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* - "When I played her before (and lost)... I think I played not to lose. Today I just played to win. I said 'f' it.'" - Taylor Townsend, on defeating Simona Halep
* - "I'm going to try and milk this as long as I can." - Kristie Ahn during her breakout Round of 16 run
* - "For me, this is kind of the moment that I live for. Even if the crowd isn't for me. ... I'm the type of person that loves when people come and watch. I'd rather be in a stadium where people are completely against me and it's completely full rather than a side court with ten people but they're for me." - Naomi Osaka, after winning the headlining 3rd Round night match vs. 15-year old Coco Gauff
* - "If anyone could win this -- other than Venus! -- I’d want it to be Bianca Andreescu." - Serena Williams, in her post-match speech after losing in the final to Andreescu
* - "I'm honestly speechless. I need someone to pinch me right now. Is this real life?" - Bianca Andreescu
posted by Todd.Spiker @ 1:45 AM
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