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Last Saturday’s final between Coco Gauff and Aryna Sabalenka exemplified some of the very best and very worst of the tournament. Their contrast of styles was on display for all to see: Sabalenka’s power and single-mindedness against Gauff’s ability to endure and problem-solve. They took turns finding their games and unfortunately, as the 2-6, 6-3, 6-2 final score indicates, they were not at their best at the same moments. It was a dramatic match, but not an especially good one.
Gauff’s win, however, was immediately understood as symbolizing American core values such as determination, grit and self-belief. The crowd, after a heavy two-week diet of narratives about the rise of American tennis, finally got what it came to see: not just a win for Gauff but the fulfillment of an American story.
During the broadcast, Chris Evert couldn’t resist calling Gauff the face and future of tennis and declaring that there will be many majors in her future. I have heard Evert lay this burden on players before. She may be proved right, but these unnecessary pronouncements never do the players any favors. What do we learn from these prophesies but to repeat them again and again? This reflexive American triumphalism turns any final into little more than a prologue, with more and better promised in the future. It just sells the product; a grasping for greatness in the moment instead of simply letting the moment be.
As I watched that final, I could not help thinking that I had seen all this play out a few times before on that same court: the experienced hard-hitter with the championship pedigree exhaling into her shots as though she was hitting them with all of her soul; then suddenly the strokes going off the rails, first long, then wide, the player wondering for all to see what in the world was happening to her game. On the other side of the net, a player with mind-boggling foot speed first overwhelmed by her opponent’s firepower, then realizing that the first step was to keep the ball in play no matter what, play with changes of pace and some chicanery, then seize the moment when the skies say to her that this is her day.
And it was a great day for Coco Gauff. It is also worth keeping in mind that repeat winners have been rare lately: Nine of the last 10 U.S. Open women’s championships have been won by different players. While we understandably marvel at 19-year-old Gauff’s precocious success, she is less of an outlier than we might want to believe: The 2019 U.S. Open women’s champion, Bianca Andreescu, was also 19, and in 2021 the champion, Emma Raducanu, was 18.
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