Bill Simons
NEW YORK
A giggly Belarusian who was real good at tennis moved from Minx to Miami. You’d think Floridians would have welcomed her with open arms. Well, not exactly. Orlando’s Madison Keys smacked Aryna Sabalenka in the Aussie Open final. Delray Beach’s Coco Gauff left her in shambles in Paris, and Aventura’s Amanda Anisimova dismissed Aryna in the Wimbledon semis.
But today, the broad-shouldered 27-year-old said, “Enough already! I’m tired of your Southern hospitality. I’ve reached the semis or finals of all four majors this year, and I’ll be damned if I finish the year as No. 1 without winning a Slam. Plus, the heck with this share-the-wealth business.” In New York, no woman had defended her US Open title since Serena in 2014. And, believe it or not, Aryna was the underdog in today’s final.
After all, Anisimova is from Freehold, the Jersey home of rocker Bruce Springsteen, who wrote “I’m on Fire.” Her quarterfinal win over Iga Swiatek was arguably the greatest moment of redemption since Jana Novotna redeemed herself by winning Wimbledon in 1998. And her win over Naomi Osaka in the semis displayed calm and poise.
While Anisimova has the most beguiling Mona Lisa smile on the circuit, it’s her clean power assaults, in the tradition of Capriati, Davenport and Sharapova, that are her brand. Osaka once said after she played Amanda, “It almost felt like I was fighting for my life out there…It was jarring to be on my back foot.”
At the outset, Anisimova’s laser blasts gained three breakpoints in the opening game. But she failed to capitalize, and soon we saw the first of a torrent of errors – backhands wide, forehands long. She lost her first service game, and you could see the dread on her face: “Oh, no – not this again!” She was probably thinking, “I must get on the scoreboard of a Slam final.”
But her fears were short-lived, as she pounded groundies and won three games in a row, seemingly in ascendance.
Aryna and Amanda have much in common. It’s not just that they only live 18 miles apart and are sublime power meisters. They both lost their fathers way too early and have faced incredible mental challenges. Today, they both had much to prove.
After Anisimova evened the first set at 3-3, Aryna, the woman with the tiger tattoo, showed her fighting spirit and called on her priceless experience. She hadn’t missed a Grand Slam final on hard courts since 2023, and this was her seventh Slam final.
In contrast, Anisimova lost her focus and her confidence, and moved poorly. Sabalenka regrouped, played within herself and was consistent as she suffered only four first-set unforced errors and took a commanding 6-3, 3-1 lead.
No, this was not the hapless rout we saw at Wimbledon. But maybe it was just too much to ask Amanda to beat Swiatek, Osaka and Sabalenka back to back. In particular, we wondered whether her marathon win over Osaka had drained her, or perhaps the bright lights of Ashe arena, literally and figuratively, were just too much. Later she shared that she had big trouble seeing the ball in the indoor brightness of Ashe Stadium.
Then, as comedian Chelsea Handler looked on, Amanda’s handlers encouraged her. All was not lost. As Naomi Watts cheered, Amanda suddenly lit it up, tapped into her high-voltage game and battled back to even the second set 3-3. Anisimova’s backhand is one of the wonders of the tennis world. But today, the 24-year-old, who’s known for her easy power, showed little of the ease that brought her to the final. She later admitted, “For finals, I have a lot of nerves…I felt I was kind of in the back seat today. It was hard to have any momentum or rhythm.”
As Billie Jean King looked on from her suite, Sabalenka proved she’s the real royalty in the WTA these days. The queen of Queens and the queen of hard courts broke to go up 5-3 in the second set. Patriotic fans said, “Oh well, American women have reached the finals in all four Slams this year and won two – not bad for the red, white and blue.”
Sabalenka was just two points from the championship. But things are rarely easy for the Belarusian. She netted an awkward overhead, and the still battling Anisimova blasted a blazing forehand to break back as the set marched to its tiebreak.
But here’s a bit of tennis wisdom. Great players often step up at crunch time. The once erratic, certain to crumble in the clutch Belarusian had won a record 17 tiebreakers in a row. This is not a typo. And it was no accident that the savvy, seasoned veteran took the tiebreak by the throat, winning six points on the trot.
Soon an Anisimova backhand return floated wide, and Sabalenka fell to her knees in ecstatic triumph – 6-3, 7-6 (3). In a flash, all the pain of a troubled year in which she was brutally criticized for handling losses poorly vanished. The devastating memory of her wretched defeat to Coco Gauff in 2023 when she smashed her racket in fury vanished forever.
Now we saw her beaming smile of a four-time Slam winner who confided, “It’s been a crazy, crazy journey…It’s been hard…[But] all the stuff was worth this…I wanted to laugh, I wanted to cry, I wanted to scream at the same time.”
One of the most fun-loving champions tennis has ever had then turned to her team and teased, “It’s been tough. I was terrible and so were you. But come on. I’m worth it.”
She later said that she’d studied her losses this year and realized that if she reached a final, she just expected to win, and would falter if her foe fought back hard. Today, when Amanda surged, she just took a deep breath and reset.
Earlier this week, Sabalenka had said that if she prevailed at the Open, she’d be the happiest woman in the world. Now, there’s no doubt about it.
– Also reporting: Vinay Venkatesh
