Coco Gauff harnessed the loudest and most partisan crowd on the circuit to land her maiden grand-slam title, four years after her explosive debut at Wimbledon.
After a lamentable start, the match caught light in the second set and thrilled an all-star audience that included a quartet of major movie stars: Nicole Kidman, Charlize Theron, Diane Keaton and Laura Dern.
The American fans did their utmost to lift their protege, and their exhortations began to pay dividends after an hour or so. Once a refreshed Gauff began to reel in Sabalenka’s early lead, each successful game drew such a full-throated response that the sound had an almost physical force.
While the first few exchanges might have been sketchy, Gauff grew into the match and displayed the virtues that have long marked her out as a legend in waiting.
She served powerfully and clobbered the ball off both wings. But the key factor was her astonishing movement. Even though Sabalenka is as powerful a hitter as the women’s game has seen, it felt like she had to finish each point four or five times, so seamless was Gauff’s defence.
By the deciding set of Gauff’s 2-6, 6-3, 6-2 comeback win, Sabalenka’s mighty grunt sounded less like a territorial roar and more like a cry of pain. She was not playing badly, but Gauff had the answers to everything. With condition here being far slower than usual this year, the road-runners – who also include men’s finalist Daniil Medvedev – have had an advantage over the shot-makers.
Even if we put aside American jingoism, most neutrals must also have been on Gauff’s side. For one thing, Sabalenka’s Belorussian nationality is less than palatable amid a time of war in Eastern Europe. But there was also a bigger picture at play. This was the breakthrough that New York – and the whole sport of tennis – had been waiting for since Gauff ambushed Venus Williams on No 1 Court in 2019.
Articulate, charismatic and politically progressive without ever seeming sanctimonious, Gauff is an athlete in a thousand. Now, with this crown behind her, she might be able to relax into the massive expectations that have followed her around for years.
Nerves on both sides played a part in some ropey early exchanges. The combined unforced error count had reached double figures after just a couple of games, and it was the forehands of both women which were malfunctioning.
Time and again, Sabalenka would use her extra weight of shot to push the electrifyingly quick Gauff around the baseline and earn a short ball to put away. Yet these apparently easy shots were the ones she kept botching.
Meanwhile, Gauff’s notoriously flaky forehand was having one of its off days. Because of her extreme grip, she needs to swing aggressively at the ball in order to generate revolutions and therefore control. But when her racket arm gets tight – as it was here for the first dozen games or so – she sprays it everywhere.
The turning point was a phenomenal piece of escapology to deny Sabalenka a service hold at 6-2, 1-2. After fending off a series of brutal attacks, Gauff struck a running backhand pass that drew the loudest roar of the tournament to date.
The sheer volume of the support clearly invigorated her and drove away her nerves. And now the forehand began to fire, as she swung with commitment at last. By the latter stages of this masterclass, she was performing at her peak, coughing up only two unforced errors in the third set.
Sabalenka tried to hold her up with a medical time-out at the last but one changeover, but Gauff kept her focus, serving balls into the backboard to keep herself warm. Then, finally, she sent a backhand pass down the line and burst into floods of tears.
Gauff thus became the first American teenager to win the US Open since Serena Williams in 1999 – although it is of course only two years since 18-year-old Briton Emma Raducanu performed the same feat. While Raducanu’s miracle sent a shockwave around the world, this will be an even more popular result in Gauff’s native America.
Source : daily telegraph
