1 week ago
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At 12.54am on Friday morning, at the end of a pulsating and exhausting Arthur Ashe night session, Amanda Anisimova surged past Naomi Osaka and into the US Open final.
For the fifth straight Grand Slam, there will be an American woman in action on the final Saturday, after Anisimova came from a set down to beat two-time champion Osaka 6-7, 7-6, 6-3.
The 24-year-old from Freehold New Jersey has been on a mission this fortnight to exorcise the ghosts of her traumatic and dramatic 6-0, 6-0 defeat at the hands of Iga Swiatek in the Wimbledon final.
First, Swiatek was beaten in the quarters, and now she is back in a final. For her final trick, she must prove the lessons have been learned and claim the Grand Slam title for which she has appeared marked out since a prodigious girlhood.
Standing in her way is the defending champion Sabalenka, whom she beat in the semis to reach that Wimbledon final.
Despite playing here as the No8 seed to Osaka’s 23rd, Anisimova was most observers’ underdog. Osaka has an extraordinary record of never having a lost a match from the quarter-finals onwards: on each of the four times she has reached that stage she has gone on to win the title.
That run was ended here, but the level which Osaka produced this fortnight suggests the 27-year-old is closing in on a return to her best, two years after giving birth to her daughter Shai.
Before we get to the nuts and bolts of this white-knuckle ride of a match, what a disgrace that so few were able to see it. Due to tennis’s peculiar approach to scheduling, he second set began at quarter past midnight, by which time well over two-thirds of the Ashe crowd had begun to make their way home.
And what about TV viewers? What about these young girls - whom the sport purports to be so keen to inspire - who would have been packed off for bedtime hours ago?
This obsession with targetting the prime time evening slot has to change. The men’s semis on Friday will be split between the day and the night, why not do the same for the women?
Anyway, to the match itself. Just as she did against Swiatek in the quarters, Anisimova dropped serve in the opening game of the match thanks to a double fault and a couple of errors.
In the third game Anisimova was vigorously wiping sweaty palms on her tennis dress - just as she did in the early stages of that Wimbledon final. It was not warm under the Ashe roof; that sweat was all nerves.
It was an untidy match. Anisimova was leaking errors but Osaka was not playing well either, dragged into mediocrity by the lack of rhythm provided by her opponent.
In the first tiebreak, an Anisimova double fault gave the edge to Osaka, who won six points in a row and took it 7-4.
In the penultimate point of the breaker saw a minor gaffe from the electronic line calling system - after all those issues at Wimbledon. Osaka sent a groundstroke towards the baseline and a call of ‘out’ came - but before the ball had bounced. A pregnant pause ensued while they sorted things out, and when a replay on screen showed the ball had indeed bounced out there was no harm done.
But it was further evidence that the technology is not without its kinks.
The level of play increased in the second set but the wild oscillations did not. It was a shootout with blunderbusses.
Osaka was rattled, smacking her racket on the court and wheeling round on her team as yet another second serve was rifled back past her.
Having begun the match so wildly, Anisimova was beginning to zero in. By the time the third set began, it felt like Osaka had lost almost all agency in the match: it was all about Anisimova, whether her thunderbolts would land in or out.
The American broke early in the decider and, with 1am approaching, stepped up to the line to serve for a place in her first US Open final.
She faced a break point. Saved.
Osaka brought up a second break point as she thundered a forehand that literally floored her opponent, Anisimova falling on to her back in disbelief. She picked herself up and lasered yet another searing backhand down the line - she plays that shot better than anyone in the world.
Another thumping forehand and the match was won - and what a match it was.
