The US Open finalists were determined on one of the great nights of women’s tennis in New York as Victoria Azarenka produced a sublime performance to recover from a first set demolition against Serena Williams, finally winning 1-6, 6-3, 6-3. Earlier, Naomi Osaka overcame Jennifer Brady in high class 7-6(1), 3-6, 6-3 tussle. Azarenka will face Osaka in a rematch of the Western & Southern Open final two weeks ago, which Osaka withdrew from with a hamstring injury.
Thursday night marked only the second time in 18 years that three current multiple slam champions simultaneously reached a slam semi-final. For Williams and Azarenka, this meant the rekindling of one of the defining rivalries of the previous decade. The pair have stared each other down in 23 matches over 12 years and such familiarity was an asset for Williams early on. She had struggled through a triad of three-set matches over the fortnight, but on Thursday was all too aware that her previous form would not suffice.
Williams opened with a near perfect set of tennis, breezing through the first set. It has been seven years since Azarenka last experienced the emotions and pressure of a slam semi-final, and in those early moments it showed in her sluggishness.
“I knew I had to step up with my game,” she said. “It was very quick. In the beginning, it was a lot of very short rallies. She served really, really well. I felt like I was kind of out of range. I wasn’t finding my serve. Second serve was getting killed.”
Azarenka was immediately on her own case, barking at herself in encouragement and punctuating her modest victories with fluent English expletives. She pushed forward to the baseline and began to take the ball as early as she could, opening up the court and commanding the rallies. What transpired was one of the best sets of her career, in which she made only one unforced error across 54 points alongside 12 winners.
Early in the third set, Williams hurt her ankle and received a medical timeout to apply heavy wrapping, immediately losing her serve upon the restart. Against many other opponents there would have remained hope for a comeback, but Azarenka had fallen into a rhythm. She refused to be pushed from her spot on the baseline and she constantly forced Williams onto the run, sharply redirecting the American’s blows as she saw out the win. In the end, Williams did as well as she could. She improved her level dramatically from the previous rounds and she played well enough. Azarenka played better.
“It’s obviously disappointing,” said Williams. “At the same time, you know, I did what I could today. I feel like other times I’ve been close and I could have done better. Today I felt like I gave a lot.”
For Azarenka, who reached No 1 and won the 2012 and 2013 Australian Open, this marked her first slam final since she lost to Williams at the 2013 US Open. Afterwards, the 31 year-old talked about the journey she has taken over seven years as she recovered from injuries, a custody battle for her son, Leo, and her own ego to return to the top of the sport once more.
“When you’re coming up from kind of nothing, then you become a No 1 player in the world, sometimes you can start to think you’re invincible and that you’re better than everybody, and it’s not true. So the ego starts to grow. It’s very hurtful when it gets damaged,” she said.
“Instead of getting the ego damaged, I tried to remove that and learn from my mistakes of that ego, and realising, maturing, that being a tennis player doesn’t make you better or worse than anybody else, that you’re still human, and all you can do is try to be the best version of yourself and keep improving. I try to put that aside. But not when I play card games. It’s still so big.”
Awaiting in the final is Osaka, who wore a mask with the name of Philando Castile, a black man who was shot dead by a police officer in front of his partner and four-year old daughter during a routine traffic stop in 2016.
Both Osaka and Brady arrived on Arthur Ashe Stadium acutely aware of the moment and they conspired to produce three sets of brutal, beautiful first strike tennis. Both players were already in excellent form but their levels were elevated, taking big risks with a minimal return of unforced errors.
Osaka has shown herself to be a competitor of rare fortitude under pressure and after the pair split sets, she took control in the third set with a blaze of forehand winners to reach the final. A reflection of Osaka’s penchant for big moments is in her record deep in slams. She has now passed the fourth round three times in her career. The results are startling: she won the 2018 US Open, the 2019 Australian Open and she has now reached the 2020 US Open final this week.
“The closer it gets to the finals, the more I think about – honestly, like no one remembers anyone but the winner,” she said. “Even if I do happen to… [not] achieve my goal in the finals, at least I get a shiny little trophy. At least I can leave with something.”