By Olaitan Ibrahim
Aryna Sabalenka beat Amanda Anisimova 6-3, 7-6(3) in the U.S. Open final at Arthur Ashe Stadium on Saturday.
The No. 1 seed prevailed over the No. 8 seed in a tense match that was even less straightforward than the scoreline, ultimately decided by a second-serve point battle, Sabalenka’s superior nerve management, and the balance of risk and reward in both players’ games. It is Sabalenka’s second consecutive U.S. Open title and her fourth Grand Slam title, cementing her place at the top of the world rankings. Sabalenka’s most recent Grand Slam final, the French Open loss to Coco Gauff, was defined in part by how stressed the world No. 1 got in pressure situations. Sabalenka is outwardly expressive and so often teeters close to the edge of when the standards she sets for herself start to become counterproductive.
She teetered on that edge here when she was broken for 3-2 in the first set. Frustrated, she thought about smacking a ball away in frustration but decided better of it. Had she shown her opponent and the crowd how annoyed she was it might have lit a fuse on Ashe and brought back memories of her unraveling in Paris.
Instead, she kept her cool and won the next four games to take the opening set. Having made three unforced errors in the first five games of the match, she made none in the next four. And after three forced errors in the fifth game alone, Sabalenka only made two in the rest of the set. Anisimova started spraying errors after being locked in early herself, so Sabalenka was one part of a two-player exchange. But as Sabalenka found to her cost against Gauff, sometimes being solid is enough in a Grand Slam final.
She displayed it again after the most devastating possible blow, being broken when serving for the title, including missing a smash one winner away from championship point. Sabalenka got to a tiebreak, where she has been so dominant this year, and locked down again for the win. So much of tennis is about serving. This match presented something else — a battle of returning, especially on second serves. That’s a credit to two players who are better than just about anyone else at feasting on an opponent’s second serve. Returners like that see second serves as an opportunity to win points, while servers generally aim to win around 55 percent of the points they play on them. Throughout the match, both Sabalenka and Anisimova took riskier cuts at second serves, going closer to the lines more so than hitting faster — their average speeds were in line with the rest of the tournament.
Sabalenka and Anisimova have the ability to push that number much lower, but as this final unfolded, only one of them was able to do it. At 3-3 in the first set, Sabalenka was serving at 30-30. She missed her first serve, but Anisimova couldn’t get her second-serve return in. She got another look on the next point, but hit a pretty meek ball. Sabalenka jumped on it and Anisimova sent the next shot out.
She stared up at the crowd and let out a big sigh. She knew she had let a golden opportunity for a lead in the second half of a set slip away. It was part of a four-game slide that gave Sabalenka the first set.