Coco Gauff’s forehand deserted her at the worst possible time. And took her shot at another U.S. Open title with it.
The American star fell to Elena Rybakina in Thursday night’s semifinal in Arthur Ashe Stadium, her Kazakhstani foe coming from behind to win 3-6, 6-4, 6-4.
Win or lose in Saturday’s final, come Monday morning Rybakina will be the No. 1 player in the world. She looked it.
Rybakina came to Flushing Meadows two weeks ago with legitimate injury questions that kept her out of mixed doubles. She’d suffered an ankle and left heel tendon injury in the Cincinnati Open quarterfinals against Iga Swiatek on Aug. 20.
But so far in the U.S. Open, she’s dropped just two sets — one of them Thursday night. But she still stormed back against Gauff.
Rybakina is in the midst of a towering season, and Monday morning she will seize the top ranking away from Aryna Sabalenka.
The 2023 U.S. Open champ, Gauff had won 11 straight matches after earning the Cincinnati Open title. She is the last person to beat Sabalenka here in Flushing Meadows, and now Rybakina will get her shot to try.
Sabalenka has a shot to become the first woman to three-peat in the U.S. Open since Serena Williams did it from 2012-14. She’s riding a 19-match winning streak here at Flushing Meadows after dominating American Jessica Pegula on Thursday.
Serving tied 2-all in the first set, Gauff faced deuce and responded with a 122 mph ace followed by a perfect serve to hold.
It shows her improvement over the past year working with biomechanics specialist Gavin MacMillan on her first serve. When it’s on, Gauff has one of the best serves on tour.
She used multiple great gets in the next game, brilliant defense to get her break finally and go up 4-2.
The crowd started to get behind Gauff, which powered her. And she held at love to get them off their feet roaring.
Gauff’s defense was giving Rybakina fits. She was standing farther back and giving herself time to force longer rallies, where she has the edge. Rybakina committed 18 unforced errors, Gauff taking the set 6-3.
But her Russian-born foe responded in the second set. With Gauff having won a dozen of the 16 rallies that went five or more shots, Rybakina’s coach Stefano Vukov had her come up to net more in the second set.
The results were immediate.
Rybakina took three straight games to go up 4-1. Gauff settled in, broke back and knotted the set at 4-all.
But some ill-timed forehand errors down the stretch cost Gauff the set. She whacked herself on the leg in frustration, knowing she’d blown a golden opportunity.
Still, it was on to a third set, where Gauff had essentially lived.
Her 26-8 mark was the third-best of any woman in the Open era, and she was 7-2 in Majors this season. Gauff — who is in great shape, the best defensive player in the women’s game and perfectly comfortable grinding out ugly wins — set about doing just that. But couldn’t.
Down 3-2, then Gauff fell behind love-30 in her serve. But after a shaky start, she responded, staving off two break points to hold, roaring, ‘Come on!’
Rybakina powered through her third hold at love to go up 4-3. And when Gauff finally got broken — dumping a backhand into the net — it handed one of the best servers on the planet a chance to serve out the match.
Gauff’s great backhand pass finally gave her a break point, and Rybakina put it in the net to open the door for Gauff to get back on serve.
But Rybakina charged the net to set up double match point, and an unforced error on a spike sealed it.
