NEW YORK \u2014 On Aryna Sabalenka\u2019s first chance to end her U.S. Open semifinal against Jessica Pegula and earn the chance to play for a second consecutive trophy at Flushing Meadows, the defending champion dumped what should have been an easy overhead into the net, then stared at the ground.<\/p>\n
On Sabalenka\u2019s second chance, she missed a clumsy volley \u2014 and later acknowledged she shouldn\u2019t have ventured forward, because she went just 15 for 27 when up at the net. Uh, oh.<\/p>\n
So good at important moments in the high-stakes, high-tension final set, Sabalenka held it together there and held on, converting her third match point Thursday night for a 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory over Pegula in a rematch of last year\u2019s final.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was super emotional. I was just like, \u2018Oh, my gosh, no way it\u2019s happening. Please, just close this match,\u2019\u201d Sabalenka explained afterward. \u201cThe whole match, I just keep telling myself: (Onto) the next one, just one step at a time, don\u2019t worry about the past. Just try better in the next point.\u201d<\/p>\n
When it was over, Sabalenka rocked back on her heels, spread her arms and screamed.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, when she faces No. 8 Amanda Anisimova in the final, the No. 1-seeded Sabalenka will be trying to become the first woman to claim consecutive championships at Flushing Meadows since Serena Williams got three in a row from 2012 to 2014.<\/p>\n
Anisimova eliminated No. 23 Naomi Osaka 6-7 (4), 7-6 (3), 6-3 in a match that ended at nearly 1 a.m. to reach her second straight major final. At Wimbledon in July, Anisimova was the runner-up to Iga Swiatek, who beat her 6-0, 6-0 in the title match. <\/p>\n
But Anisimova recovered from that well enough, and quickly enough, to get past Swiatek in two sets in the U.S. Open quarterfinals.<\/p>\n
Now Anisimova, a 24-year-old who was born in New Jersey and grew up in Florida, gets another shot at winning her first Grand Slam trophy.<\/p>\n
She is the first opponent to beat Osaka this late in a Grand Slam tournament. Before this loss, Osaka had been a combined 14-0 over her career in major quarterfinals, semifinals and finals.<\/p>\n
Like Osaka vs. Anisimova, Thursday\u2019s first semifinal was quite close \u2014 closer than the straight-set triumph for Sabalenka over Pegula 12 months ago that gave the 27-year-old from Belarus her third Grand Slam title, all on hard courts.<\/p>\n
Since then, Sabalenka was the runner-up to Madison Keys at the Australian Open in January and to Gauff at the French Open in June, then was eliminated in the Wimbledon semifinals by Anisimova in July.<\/p>\n
Arthur Ashe Stadium\u2019s retractable roof was shut before the semifinals began, which prevented disruption from the wind outside gusting at up to 30 mph and the rain that arrived during play.<\/p>\n
In the good, indoor conditions, No. 4 Pegula played about as cleanly as possible in the first set and the third, making just three unforced errors in each. But in the second, that count was nine.<\/p>\n
By the end, Sabalenka had accumulated more than twice as many winners as Pegula, 43-21.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were pushing each other,\u201d Pegula said, \u201cevery single game.\u201d<\/p>\n
All evening, Pegula went after her returns, taking big cuts and not playing it safe, by any means. This, then, was the key: Sabalenka was able to save all four break points she faced in the last set.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was really high-level. I don\u2019t really know what else to say,\u201d said Pegula, who was wearing a white New York Yankees jacket and enjoying a root beer lollipop at her news conference. \u201cI don\u2019t know how I didn\u2019t break back in the third.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked how she managed to handle those moments, Sabalenka replied with a laugh: \u201cJust praying inside and hoping for the best.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neither she nor Pegula had lost a set in the tournament before Thursday, although Sabalenka only needed to go through four matches, instead of five, to reach the semifinals, because her quarterfinal opponent, Marketa Vondrousova, withdrew with an injured knee.<\/p>\n
That meant Sabalenka hadn\u2019t competed since Sunday.<\/p>\n
Might she be rusty? Sure didn\u2019t look that way at the outset, and Sabalenka used a nifty drop-shot-volley-winner combination to help go up a break and grab a 4-2 lead.<\/p>\n
But Pegula didn\u2019t fold. In the next game, with the thousands in the stands roaring for every point gained by the American, Sabalenka netted off-balance groundstrokes on two points in a row and double-faulted to get broken right back.<\/p>\n
Sabalenka shook her head and slammed her arms by her side. That ended her run of 32 consecutive holds, and she draped a white towel over her head at the changeover. Pegula then broke again to cap a four-game run that wrapped up the set and, this time, Sabalenka quickly retrieved her bag and headed off to the locker room.<\/p>\n
When she came back, Sabalenka elevated her play \u2014 and steadied her mind when necessary.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will go out there on Saturday,\u201d she said, \u201cand I\u2019ll fight for every point like the last point of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Howard Fendrich, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2014 On Aryna Sabalenka\u2019s first chance to end her U.S. Open semifinal against Jessica Pegula and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122488,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,77,82,593],"class_list":{"0":"post-122487","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-international","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}