Coco Gauff's U.S. Open title signals that the future of tennis has arrived
Coco Gauff reacts after defeating Aryna Sabalenka to win her first Grand Slam title in the U.S. Open women’s singles championship in Arthur Ashe Stadium at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center on Saturday. Credit: Newsday/J. Conrad Williams Jr.
It’s official. America has a new tennis queen.
Coco Gauff not only lived up to all the hype that surrounded her first U.S. Open final appearance, she produced a match that transcended it.
The 19-year-old American won her first Grand Slam title with a gutty 2-6, 6-3, 6-2 victory over Aryna Sabalenka, the No. 1 player in the world.
After clinching the win Saturday night with a backhanded pass down the line that Sabalenka couldn’t get to, Gauff dropped to the court, covered her face and started crying. She then hugged Sabalenka and ran into the stands to hug her parents and the rest of the team.
The entire scene left the more than 28,000 fans at Arthur Ashe Stadium in a happy state as they realized they had witnessed something that will be talked about for years to come.
No one can predict the future, but it’s a pretty safe bet that this won’t be Gauff’s last Grand Slam title. And it just seems so right that it should happen here, on the same court where Serena Williams won her first Grand Slam title in 1999 and on the very same court where she said goodbye to tennis last year by playing her last match.
Gauff, who has been in the public eye since she was 15, showed a new kind of maturity in winning this title match. Though 99.9% of the fans were cheering for her, she seemed a bit overwhelmed by the moment in the first set, and the hard-hitting Sabalenka was able to take advantage of that
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“I would say that sometimes this kind of support can put a lot of pressure on the player they are supporting,” Sabalenka said. “And it’s kind of like it was on her in the beginning.”
Gauff, the No. 6 seed, was broken in the first game of the match and never really found her rhythm for the rest of the set. Gauff said she was able to pull it together during a bathroom break before the second set.
“I mean, it doesn’t get any more dramatic than that,” she said. “I was washing my hands, I put some water on my face and I was, like, OK, I’ve got to just reset and redo it.”
Gauff had been rather stoic during the first set, but she began to yell at the crowd and they responded in kind. “Come on! Come on!” she repeatedly screamed during the first couple of games of the second set. She then took control by breaking Sabalenka in the fourth game and recording an 81% win percentage on her first serve.
The third set was all Gauff as she jumped out to a 4-0 lead while the crowd went wild.
The win completes quite a turnaround for Gauff since her shocking first-round loss at Wimbledon. Since then, she has compiled a 17-1 record and won three of the four tournaments she competed in.
Gauff said she realized what kind of pressure she was under heading into Saturday’s final, and she used that pressure to push herself to the next level.
Up until 10 minutes before the match, she said she was scrolling through negative comments.
“Honestly, thank you to the people who didn’t believe in me . . . I tried my best to carry this with grace, and I’ve been doing my best,’’ she said. “So those who thought they were putting water on my fire, you were really adding gas to it. I’m burning so bright right now.”
Gauff is just the third American teenager to win the U.S. Open. Tracy Austin did it in 1979 and 1981 and Serena Williams did it in 1999. She knows there now will be a target on her back, but she seems fine with that.
Said Gauff: “I feel like this is a big achievement, but honestly, I feel like I’ve been so used to this since I was basically 15 years old in high school, doing online school, just used to it. I mean, I’m sure it might be a much bigger scale now because of this achievement, but I’m ready. I mean, I embrace it.
“I know how to keep my peace but also embrace all of this around me. Yeah, I think the pressure has been a little bit taken off a little bit, and I still am hungry for more.
“But yeah, I’m just going to enjoy this and try not to look into the future.”
Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.
